


Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: The Drill Triad

by Gigasmashwarrior26



Series: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Triad Chronicles [1]
Category: Original Work, Senki Zesshou Symphogear, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anime/Manga Fusion, Cross-Posted on Wattpad, Crossover, Giant Robots, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-15 02:44:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18489688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigasmashwarrior26/pseuds/Gigasmashwarrior26
Summary: Every dimension has its own set of warriors, each one rising up against an evil adversary. These men and women harness the power inside of them known as their fighting spirit. However, there are times when these warrior's spirits are extinguished. But what if some events were changed? How would their futures be affected? Who else would be affected by these different circumstances? Now, six individuals must bring about this power in order to fight their toughest opponents and possibly save the entire universe. Crossover between Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Senki Zesshou Symphogear, and an original world of my own creation.Crossposted from WattpadWill follow canon events from Gurren Lagann, but will add elements that will diverge from it later on.





	1. A Triad's Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone. Welcome to my first ever story here on AO3 and the first ever story I wrote on Wattpad. Had a bit of trouble uploading this here, but now everything should be good! Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the story, and please comment down below on what you think. I'm open to any suggestions you may have. Also, I wrote this when I was still inexperienced in writing stories a few years ago, so I understand if there are things that seem rather confusing or need improvement on, and I will edit my work constantly to make sure it's better and up to standard. Again,Thank you!

The cosmos, stretching out as far as all of human imagination itself. Stars illuminating the vast reaches of every corner in every direction for everyone to see. The shapes of galaxies represent the way they move throughout the dark void of space. Or perhaps, do even more than that? What were their other purposes? What was their meaning? These were the thoughts of six mighty, yet individual souls, which comprised of four men and two women, as an entire galaxy was sent hurtling towards them, and exploded right in front of their ships.

"Shields are having trouble stabilizing," a technician started to call, as he typed like mad on his keyboard, "Sirs, the armor plating won't hold much longer!"

The group barely seemed fazed by the onslaught.

"We're receiving heavy fire in blocks 233 through 351!" another technician cried out in a worried tone. A bright flash brightened the area to reveal a flag: a bright red skull made up of flames with triangular shaped glasses over a white background. Surrounding the skull seemed to be multiple musical notes as well as a giant crimson circle in the shape of a dragon.

"Damage?" One of the men asked with a plain voice as they walked towards the front of the deck. He wore no shirt, revealing his bare chest with bluish tattoos across almost his entire body save for his chest. He also wore a red cape with the same skull as the flag. Under the cape, it revealed his bandaged lower region underneath his sarashi and pants. The sound of his wooden sandals clicking on the deck cut through the rather noisy bridge.

"Minimal, but our cloaking is completely shot!"

"Don't worry," another man of the group replied. This one of the group also wore no shirt underneath his dark blue coat and his blue pants with stripes moving downward along the sides. This caused the rest of the group to become rather excited at the idea of a massive fight ahead of them. They all started to stride forward the very top of the bridge. "How's it looking out there?"

"Their fleet size is completely off the scale!"

"I guess all these lights in the sky are our opponents, huh?" said another of the group, this time it being one of the girls, looking up at the starry sky above. She was moderately tall and had a large mass of red hair on her head, which, surprisingly, appeared to give off the illusion of her having wings. She was dressed in what appeared to be a strange type of battle armor that covered most of her body, save for her belly. On the armor part that covered her collar bone, was a tiny red gem. Two massive boots adorned her legs, as her arms were covered by giant gauntlets. All of her armor also took three colors, which were orange, white, and black. She moved her arms together, and in one swift motion, the gauntlets on her arms started to converge and shift, forming what could be described as a giant spear of some sorts. "These might be pretty good adversaries after all! They just don't know who we are yet! Just give us some time and we'll use the fabric of space and time to rip them out of existence!"

The other girl, who had shorter hair than the first, as well as being dressed in a similar battle armor which was colored in yellow instead of orange, just sighed, "Here she goes again..." A hand rested upon her shoulder, and she looked to her left. Another of the boys, this one being clothed in a blue tank top with a giant green "D" on it, a black, short sleeved hoodie with the dragon symbol on its back, light blue jeans, red sports shoes with a white trim and green heels, and shining goggles adorning his head, as well as black finger-less gloves on his hands and white sports bandages along his elbows, was the one grasping her shoulder. "Just let her be, she needs to get it out of her systems." the boy said with a small smile on his face. "Well, alright then..."

"Yeah, just give her some time to cool down later." said the last of the four boys, this one being the smallest and youngest of them all. He wore a sleeveless gray hoodie with a black long sleeved undershirt, blue shorts, and purple trainers. He looked up at the younger girl and smiled brightly. The younger girl's heart melted at the sight.

The elder girl looked towards one of her commanders and ordered, "Now!"

"Yes sir!" The commander raised his hand and gave and order, "Prepare the Maelstrom Cannon! Target the great dimensional waterfall!" No one dared to question the order, even though some looked rather worried. The main technician ordered, "Activate the Dark Matter Harvester!" One had said underneath his breath, "This isn't going to end well..."

Each of the six started to close their eyes and started to say a name under their breath,

"Gurren Lagann,"

"Shinryu Raijin,"

"Faito Melodia,"

"SPIN ON!!!" they shouted into the sky, each one smugly crossing their arms as if they were one being. "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!" The winds rushed through their hair and lifted one of their capes as the ship they were on began to slowly transform, with cannons shifting into lower positions, and the giant face on the front of the ship starting to gather and glow with bright green energy, engulfing everything in sight in one massive explosion.

"...This is the story of a team of heroes, each from different worlds, who were brought together by destiny itself to discover what their true purpose and destinies are..."

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: The Drill Triad

Digging. That's all I've ever done my entire life. It's been my job ever since my parents had died. Every single person has their duty, and this one is mine, to be a part of the digging vanguard. If all of us dig deeper, then the village will be able to expand, and then our chief will be happy. Sometimes he'll give us pig-mole steaks if he's happy. But I'm not digging only for the steaks. There should be more to life than just digging for food, even if the job is important.The village must expand, because at any moment, an earthquake could cause the ceiling above us to fall on our heads and kill everyone... exactly like my parents. One old man says its been seven years, but no one really pays him any attention, since every day is exactly the same. That is why I dig to find different thing in the dirt, treasures. They're really rare, but if I look hard enough, I can find some pretty neat stuff.

Day after day, diggers from Jiha Village dig their way into the soil, and among these workers was a young boy named Simon Jiha. Last names weren't really important, since everybody got their last name from the village they came from anyway, and and people called him Simon the Digger in any case. Simon was a thin, fair skinned young boy with black eyes and dark blue hair. He wore a dirty brown cloak over his brown shorts, and brown shoes, (since brown was the most common color in the village), and aside from that, he wore his illumination goggles, which allowed him to work in the dark. Despite his physique, he was one of the best diggers in his village.

Even though Simon's had a fear of dying from earthquakes and being buried underground, it doesn't phase him from doing his task. Especially since dying isn't exactly on Simon's to-do list. Despite the barely promising prospects of the future, he wanted to make his life worth living, to actually achieve something, instead of just living and dying six feet underground, and he even had friends who felt the same way. Even though he knew the perils of his job he dug 'extra official' tunnels while looking for treasures.

Down in his current tunnel, Simon was hard at work slowly ebbing away at the small rocks in front of him when he felt his drill hit something small. Pausing, Simon dug at the spot his drill hit and found something incredible. It appeared to be a miniature drill, colored completely in a yellow like color. Simon picked up the mini drill with his left hand and stared at it for a while and thought 'Wow...' Suddenly, the drill started to pulsate a greenish glow. Shrugging it off, Simon started to get back to work, digging down faster and faster with each turn.

Simon started to dig his way back towards Jiha and popped out of the soil. The chief, a rather large and unpleasant man, who was over viewing the work of the other diggers watched him pop out of the hole. Shortly after Simon, two more figures popped out of their own separate holes, one being a boy, the other a girl and followed him.

The boy appeeared to be about the same age as Simon, wearing his own brown cloak, but underneath, he wore a tattered sleeveless gray hoodie and blue short sleeved undershirt as well as light tan colored shorts. He had dark brownish raven colored hair and his eyes were a bright cobalt blue. This boy's name was Yamato Fukumoto. For some strange reason, he had a last name not related to the village. Simon just assumed that he had come from another village into their own. From where, he did not know.

The girl, who was the eldest of the three, was wearing bandages around her chest and lower areas to avoid her assets from being shown, black shorts, and her own brown cloak. Her hair was a dirty chestnut blonde color and her eyes were a bright yellow. This girl's name was Hibki Tachibana. Like Yamato, she had a last name different from the village as well, and was possibly here under the same circumstances as Yamato.

The chief, seeing their work, yelled at the other workers, "Why can't any of you losers dig like them, huh?!! And one of them's a girl!!" he said as he swung his ancestral sword around like a whip and smacking the air. Seeing a chief with the sword was already scary enough, but the current one didn't think that it was enough to just have it on his person.

However, the three who popped out of the dirt didn't bother, as they were too preoccupied with what they discovered to even notice him, as they walked together side by side as a group. Hibiki did, however, glower a bit at the chief at his remark towards her, but overall just remained quiet.

"So Simon," said the other boy on Simon's right, "Find anything new today in the tunnels?" Simon smiled and showed his newly acquired drill, which he had attached to a string to make a necklace.

"Yep," said Simon, "What about you, Yamato?" The boy in question just smiled as he held up his own drill, but instead of yellow, Yamato's drill was a crimson reddish color that shined brightly amidst the darkened cavern.

"Hey! Those look a lot like something I dug up too!" Hibiki spoke out as she took out what appeared to be a silver colored version of the boys' drills. The boys looked at the girl in surprise. There was by no means any way they would all just coincidentally.

"Hibiki, do you think that this is some sort of coincidence? That maybe the three of us were supposed to find these mini drills for a reason?" Simon asked the older girl in confusion, pretty much repeating what he and Yamato were currently thinking. Though where Simon decided to press forward with his thoughts, Yamato dismissed them rather casually.

"Ah, come on Simon, you're thinking too hard again. It's like you said, just a coincidence." Yamato butted in, not in the very least concerned about the reason behind things, other than the fact that they happen. Before Hibiki could answer, as well as reprimand Yamato for just barging into a conversation, the trio heard snickering coming from ahead of them.

It was the three popular girls of Jiha Village, who were gathering water from the central pool, the lifeblood of the entire cavern. They were basically the classroom bullies, always targeting kids that were more unpopular than they were. This time, their targets were the three diggers, who happened to cross their path.

"Ew, look! It's the Digger Trio!" one of them started to mock.

"I don't get it!" another conceited, "What's the fun in getting covered in dirt everyday?" All of these insults just because they were allowed to bathe more than most, although to be fair, the three diggers were covered in a lot of dirt, the only part of them being clean were the circles around their eyes.

"They're so gross!"

"And they smell!"

"We'd better be careful though, they're the best diggers in the village!"

"Maybe they'll drill a hole through us!" the girls started to laugh as they walked away from the group, their voices dying out as they got farther away. The three hung their heads sheepishly low, and slowly walked the other direction. Though they were efficient workers, they had rather low self esteem, so it didn't take much for them to feel like complete dirt under the heels of others. Out of all of them, however, Simon had it the worst. Yamato and Hibiki could walk it off without too much trouble, but Simon always seemed to feel as though the insults would stick to him like glue from time to time. They kept walking until Simon bumped into someone, or rather, some people.

"Walk with your head held high Simon!" someone called out.

Simon lifted his head and saw a man standing right in front of him. Recognizing the man, Simon blurted out his name.

"Kamina?"

Kamina was Simon's best friend as well as somewhat his mentor. One of his most distinguishable characteristics was the orange triangular glasses that hung over his eyes, which were the last things that his father left him before he disappeared, his tattoos, where no one in the village knew where he got them, and his bare chest, along with his lack of apparel, aside from his sarashi and pants. He was, according to the old man of the village, two or three years Simon's senior.

"Don't call me Kamina, call me bro!"

Simon just looked down, a little depressed. Simon had been born an only child and was rather lonely during his first few years before he met his "brother" Kamina.

"But I don't have any siblings..." he said, rather dejectedly.

Kamina wrapped his arm around Simon, his grin never leaving his face.

"Don't sweat it. You and me, we're soul brothers, we're siblings of the spirit. So are the others."

Kamina then turned towards the other two characters behind him and nodded. The two stepped out of the shadows and revealed themselves to be a boy and a girl seemingly around Kamina's age. The boy wore a blue tank top with a green "D" on it, blue pants made of a strange fabric not seen before by Simon, strange colored shoes, a black hooded short sleeved shirt with a dragon like symbol on the back, a set of finger less gloves on his hands, and his own set of goggles resting on his forehead. His hair was a messy mixture of what seemed to be raven black, burgundy, and dark brown, and it seemed to spike upwards in multiple directions, so much so that if one looked at it, they would think his hair looked like a crab. It also had fine streaks of what appeared to be golden highlights that stood in vertical lines. His eyes were a beautiful dark cobalt blue.

The girl was almost a similar height to the brown haired boy, but a tad bit shorter. Her hair was so ridiculously long that even if you bound it in a ponytail it wouldn't change a thing. Her calm, red eyes gazed softly at the younger trio. She wore a sarashi underneath light brown shorts, with white bandages wrapped around her chest area to protect her from any onlookers, a dark brown tank top, and straw sandals on her feet. Around her neck, was a necklace which held a single red gem fastened onto it.

"Big bro Hunter?"

"Kanade?"

The duo, now known as Hunter and Kanade, looked at the two who called their names, who just so happened to be Yamato and Hibiki. The two elder siblings looked at their respective younger siblings and smiled softly. Nodding towards each other, Hunter walked towards Yamato while Kanade walked towards Hibiki.

"Hey Yamato..." Hunter started. Yamato looked upon his older brother a sad smile plastered on his face. His big brother just ruffled up his hair and gave his his little brother a big hug, trying to let him know that things were gonna be okay.

'Yeah, big bro Hunter?"

Hunter sighed, "I told you to just call me big bro, Yamato." This was a habit that Yamato had developed ever since Kamina had become another big brother in their little family, it was hard for him to differentiate between them. Hunter just tells him not to worry about it, but it had developed pretty quickly into a habit, along with his habit of speaking his mind a little too much and getting into trouble for it.

"Oh... sorry big bro." Yamato apologized softly.

Hunter gave his little brother a soft smile. He could never be upset with his little brother, even over something as trivial as that.

"Hey, don't sweat it little bro, just make sure that you always keep your head up high, even when the chips are all down."

Yamato looked up a Hunter, wiping away the still forming tears in his eyes before they could fall and offering him a small smile. Despite his cocky nature earlier and his low self esteem, he was always glad whenever his older brother offered him any sort of advice for pretty much anything.

Hunter and Yamato were a pair of brothers that mysteriously showed up in the village one day, seemingly out of nowhere and without a proper reason. Though they were new, they had gotten along great with Kamina and Simon. Simon and Yamato were great friends from the start. Hunter and Kamina formed a close bond, after a few choice words were said and bruises were healed up. They even shared a few special "secrets" with them that might drive the other villagers into burning them on a stake or accused of with craft or anything that might oust them as outsiders or freaks. When Yamato took the job as a digger, Hunter offered to help rebuild any of the broken metalwork so that the diggers could press onward. Hunter had become a reliable source for helping out the diggers of Jiha village, albeit with a bit of an attitude towards anyone who messed with his brother, where he would sometimes "forget" to adjust some of the equipment that some of the workers used, and then proclaiming he didn't know what happened. He would usually get in trouble for this, but to Hunter, it was worth it to make sure his little brother was happy.

As all of this was going on, Kanade approached Hibiki, who still looked a little down in the dumps.

"Hey there, little sis.."

Hibiki looked at her sister, tears threatening to fall from her young, innocent face, all the while trying to maintain a smile, and failing. It was the kind of look that one would get if they were in a state of loss and despair. Kanade almost felt her heart shatter a bit having to see her sister's face like this. Hibiki's older sister decided to bring her in closer for a hug as Hibiki finally let the tears fall loose. She swore to anyone who was listening to her prayers that she would kick the ever living hell out of whoever made her sister cry. The last time this had happened, Kanade had gone on a rampaging temper tantrum and pummeled the girls that dared call her sister "too skinny" or "too dirty." This alone took at least five people to calm her down, and ten people to actually hold her down long enough to calm down.

"S-Sis...T-They..."

"Don't worry, you don't need to be clean just to be noticed as a nice person. It's your actions that determine who you are."

That was all it took to make Hibiki smile, letting her siblings know that all was right in the world again. Seeing Hibiki happy was all it took. Wouldn't stop Kanade from pounding the hell out of the girls that told her she smelled, though. Compared to the rest of the people in this village, her siblings excluded from this list, she was the sweetest smelling of them all.

Kanade and Hibiki were two sisters who were in the same boat as Hunter and Yamato as they appeared, without any sort of reasonable explanation . Like the two blood brothers, they got along great with Kamina and Simon, though Kamina did try to flirt with Kanade at first, with rather expected results and numerous bruises on Kamina's face. Since Hibiki seemed to get along great with both Yamato and Simon and were always seen together, they were dubbed by the whole village as the Trio. When they were incorporated into the digging job, they worked better and harder than everyone else and were thus newly dubbed as the Digger Trio.

"Yeah," said Kamina, "Who cares what those fat, ugly chicks say, it's what your heart tells you to do that counts." This made Simon smile a little bit, albeit a little bit. Kamina then reached down and picked up the small drill Simon found.

"This looks pretty good on ya, kid!" Kamina then proceeded to hang the drill around Simon's neck, which caused him to smile softly.

"Yeah, they really suit your titles as diggers! Maybe we can use them for some of the tougher jobs around here. Lord knows we need it more than ever." Hunter added proudly. Yamato just beamed at getting praise from his older brother. Yamato looked up to his older brother quite a lot, and tried to do his best to be somewhat like him, though he still wanted to be his own person.

"Drills are your souls, you guys,and they were meant for great things!"

"Um, bro?" asked Hibiki towards Kamina, rather unsure of herself, "If you don't mind me asking, but what do you mean by that?"

Kamina just smiled while Hunter and Kanade just seemed to groan in frustration. This made Simon slightly uncomfortable. That smile and those groans could only mean one thing; trouble for everybody in the village, themselves included.

"You'll see!"

The three elder siblings led the trio into a tunnel that was sealed with a long rope and closed with a padlock. Not letting that stop them, Kamina easily broke the blockage and hurried on inside. In the tunnel revealed to be three of Kamina's friends.

"Gentlemen! Sorry for the delay! Is everything ready?!"

"Just about!" One of them said.

"Um, what is it that you're planning on doing, exactly?"

"Listen up, Simon, that drill of yours does not belong to the village chief, and neither do your siblings' drills, but to you and you alone! Your drills will be the ones to pierce the very vault of heaven!" stated Kamina as he thrust an index finger into the air. Simon chose at this point in time to start questioning his brother's mental state.

"Why?"

"I have it all figured out, don't ask questions!!"

"Which basically means you don't know, huh?"

Hunter sighed once again in frustration. "It's another one of Kamina's crazy schemes, but those ideas of his are why we love the guy so much." he said with a smile. Kamina shot him a look, but disregarded the last sentence. Honestly, Kanade thought, these two would get at each other's throats like there was no tomorrow sometimes, and she would always have to step in and pummel them into the ground before things got out of hand as usual, before proceeding to insert her own little rants and get in on the argument as well. This usually led to the three of them being thrown in jail over and over again. They were pretty much used to this at this point.

" All right, team! Are you ready?"

"Yeah!"

"We're the invincible Team Gurren and we don't slow down for anybody! We kick logic out and do the impossible!"

The team all raised one fist into the air, save for the trio, as they were still a little skeptical about what Kamina's big plan was.

Outside, the ground started to rumble, as multiple beasts known as pig-moles started plowing through the roads, with none other than the self proclaimed Team Gurren riding in on the pig-moles in the very front of the pack. Panic ensued throughout the entire cavern.

"K-Kamina! What is this?!!?" screamed Simon from the lead pig-mole's back.

"Listen Simon, we're going to use these pigs to get us to the ceiling, then it's up to you, Yamato, and Hibiki to bust through it with your drills! Once we're there, it's one straight shot to the surface!" Kamina exclaimed.

"This is insane!"

"Don't worry! We'll make it through, Simon!" yelled Kanade. Her pig-mole was rowdier than most of the others, and she had to cling her fingers deep into its flesh in order to hold on tighter. She didn't realize that she was the reason the pig-mole was flailing about in the first place.

"She's right!" shouted Hunter as he desperately clung to the pig-mole he was riding, looking as if he was about to blow chunks down to the ground far below them. He always did hate going too fast sometimes.

"We'll make it through, don't worry! I hope!" Yamato tried to yell over the sound of the galloping pig-moles.

As if on cue, a small pig-mole pooped out from Simon's cloak.

"Boota! When did you-?" Simon asked the tiny creature.

Boota was one of, if not the smallest of the entire pig-mole herd, and, had it not been for Simon, would have been chopped up and grilled into a thick fat steak, which to Kamina and many of the villagers, would have sounded delicious. The three small kids decided that, in order to protect Boota, they would share him as a pet.

Meanwhile, like the main group, another set of pig-moles was charging through the village, this one being led by the other three members of team Gurren. The two groups were about to collide in the center of one of the bridges, when suddenly, the pig-moles started to rise up and form some sort of tower that kept rising with each pig-mole added on.

"Yahoo!!! Fly, piggies!!!" Yelled Kamina over the voices of his screaming comrades. How Kamina learned this trick was a question they would ponder for the rest of their lives.

Just then, the village chief appeared atop of the highest bridge, more specifically, the one that was closest to the ceiling.

"Kamina! I should've known it was you again!" the chief yelled as he raised his brandished sword.

Kamina smirked. "You better step aside, old man!" he shouted from the lead pig. Hunter, on the other hand had something going on in his mind.

"How did the chief get up there so fast?" he thought aloud. Kanade shrugged, unable to come up with a response. It was just another one of those many mysteries in life, along with Kamina's mysterious pig tower.

"You little morons!!!"

And with that the chief, in one swift motion, slammed the sword into the lead pig, causing it to collapse, in doing so causing the rest of the pigs to fall as well. The members of team Gurren screamed in terror as they started to fall into the pool of water in the middle of the village.

The members of Team Gurren now stood in a horizontal line in front of the village chief. Kamina looked at the man in anger, Hunter looked at Yamato in worry and vice versa, Kanade looked at Kamina with nervousness, Hibiki looked to the elder siblings with curiosity, and Simon looked down to the ground, feeling a little scared.

"Would you people give it up already?!! This mysterious "Surface" of yours doesn't exist!" the chief started to bark at the group. He usually got this way on a daily basis thanks to Kamina and the others, so he got red in the face quite a lot. Some of the villagers were worried his head would explode from all of the anger he was spewing out.

"Like hell it doesn't!!!" Kamina shouted, getting into the older man's face, "Up on the surface, there ain't no walls, no ceiling, nothing but a big vast sky!!"

The chief scoffed, "The son of a liar is a liar as well!"

Kamina started getting angrier, "What did you say?!"

"Your old man always did nothing but spout crap like that, and what did it get him? Dead and buried under a rock somewhere!"

"You're wrong! My dad made it to the surface, I was there with him! So have Hunter, Yamato, Kanade, and HIbiki!"

"Heh," the chief scoffed, "If you were there, why didn't you go with him?" At this, Kamina went dead silent, his glare never leaving the chief.

"For untold generations, we have been told to never open the canopy that keeps us safe! Anyone who doesn't follow that rule, does NOT get to eat!"

The chief started to walk away, but before leaving, he said, "All of you are going to jail, with NO food!"

The three other male members panicked and started to get on their knees and beg.

"We're so sorry! Please forgive us!" They all shouted in unison.

Kamina looked absolutely livid at this. "You Weasels!"

The three unnamed members of Team Gurren looked up at their leader, rather sheepishly.

"Sorry, bro."

"Not worth going hungry for, is it?"

"Just swallow your pride and bow your head..."

Each unnamed member gave off a rather weak response to their former leader. Kamina just looked upon them with scorn in his eyes. "Don't call me that..." Kamina started to say, making the three of them squeak in fear, "...I never want to be called bro by the likes of you!"

The chief scoffed.

"Heh... Loyalty doesn't really run deep in this "Team Gurren" of yours, does it?"

Hunter started growling under his breath. If there was one thing that he valued more than his siblings, family and friends, it was loyalty to a good cause. The thought of betrayal to those kinds of beliefs always angered him to no end and he was about to shout, when Kanade placed a cuffed hand on Hunter's shoulder, shaking her head in denial. She didn't want Hunter getting punished as much as the others didn't, but these two always had a deeper bond than the others, except with their respective siblings. Hunter looked at her for a few moments before calming down if not just a little bit. This was one of the very few things that Kamina and Hunter agreed on, surprisingly.

The chief then walked over towards the Digger Trio and undid their binds as well.

"Simon, Yamato, Hibiki, come with me. You three have an important job around here, and that's to help expand the village, not waste time with these three idiots. Now come on, let's go."

The Digger Trio looked over to their older siblings with worry, but somewhat relaxed as they saw them smiling.

"Just go, guys." Kamina stated calmly, "We'll be fine, don't worry."

Hunter smiled, "We'll stay with Kamina. To make sure he doesn't get into more trouble."

Kamina sent Hunter a mock glare. "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

"It means no more crazy schemes like this, you dumbass! I told you we should've been more discreet but no! You just had to go all gung ho and rush things! There are better methods of getting up towards the surface, ya know!"

"Oh, and I assume you had an amazing plan, yourself, asshole?! You're the one who came up with that plan in the first place!"

As the two continued to mock argue, Kanade and the others couldn't help but giggle at the sight. Even though not related by blood, they were still acting like real brothers. Suddenly, the ground started shaking violently, with small pieces of stone starting to fall from the walls and roads.

Everyone started to panic. "It's... It's an earthquake! Everyone, take cover!" At this point, everyone started ducking and diving into the small holes that people called homes under the rocks.

Simon started panicking. He hated it when earthquakes started up and was always relieved when they were over.

"We gotta get outta here! Kamina, let's run!" Simon desperately tried to get Kamina to come with him, but he stood still, not bothering to move an inch.

"I'm not running!" Kamina stated proudly. Hunter and Kanade just nodded in agreement.

"Running would only increase our chances of being crushed, anyway." Kanade said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Simon started to quiver. Past memories of his parents being crushed to death as the floor collapsed around them started flooding back into his head.

"if we don't run, we're gonna die!!!" Simon cried out, startling everyone, even Kamina.

"That's right. I forgot..." Kamina moved his arms over Simon's head, embracing him in a tight hug, the rest of Team Gurren doing the same.

"Don't worry bud, it's almost over." The group could practically feel Simon's quivering body against them.

Though they weren't there, they vowed to always be there for Simon whenever he was in trouble, because to him, they were his family now. One day, they made their promise known with a bottle of something Hunter and Kanade called sake, which bound them together as brothers and sisters for life. Where they got the bottle from, no one really knows. From that day forward, they thought of each other like real brothers and sisters, always watching each other's backs. One day, Hunter wanted to do something a bit more official than just a bottle of sake, and proceeded to cut a small wound into his left arm, letting the blood seep out a bit and told the others to do the same. Once they had proceeded to do so, they proceeded to grab each other's arms by the wrists, letting the blood flow from their cuts seep into each other's open wounds. Hunter said that this would solidify their sibling bond even further, as they were now siblings in blood as well.

"Day after day after day... Are you just gonna live your life being afraid of earthquakes?! I'll be damned if I do, and so will my brothers and sisters." Kamina looked up at the entire village, "Up on the surface, there ain't no walls or ceiling!!! Youth of the village, dig toward the heavens!!" Everyone not part of Team Gurren looked at him, stunned for a minute, when the chief broke the silence, "Don't give me any of that crap! Who do you think raised you when you lost your parents, huh?!! This village doesn't need any ungrateful bastards like you!!!"

Soon afterwards, Kamina, Hunter, and Kanade were tossed into the jailhouse, where their hands were tied over their heads.

"Welp, here we are again. Honestly, you guys, could you not come up with a crazy plan every other day? It's driving the guys around us crazy..." Kanade said to the two soul brothers as Boota, after being told to watch over the three of them, laid down for a nap in Kanade's massive head of hair, which made for a nice combination of a pillow and blanket for the little pig mole, which to him was a much better alternative to sitting close to someone like Kamina. Seriously, that guy had no restraint when it came to eating meat.

"I blame Kamina for this..." Hunter said under his breath, intentionally loud enough for Kamina to hear.

"Hey! I heard that, Hunter!" Kamina shouted. The two proceeded to glare at each other again, the electricity sparking in the tense atmosphere.

Kanade just sighed as they both continued to bicker again like an old married couple.

Soon enough, it was nighttime, at least, for the village, anyway. and it was time to go to sleep. However, the Drill Trio always stayed up later than the rest, digging more holes down into what seemed like the bottomless dirt.

"You know, guys..." Simon began to speak, as his two older siblings turned to look at him as they dug a tunnel together to get their mind off of today's events, "... Ever since my parents died due to that earthquake years ago, I've been thinking that no matter how many holes we dig, we're only going to end up dying when the ceiling finally collapses down on all of our heads. Is this how it's going to be?" Yamato and Hibiki looked at each other, unsure of what to say to that remark. They knew that it was a matter of time before it happened, but how could they comfort their blood brother and reassure him that he would be alright?

"Hey, Simon..." The boy in question turned towards the voice of his sister, who only gave him a reassuring smile that meant "Everything's gonna be fine," "Don't worry so much about that stuff. I mean, we're still here, aren't we? As long as we're still kicking, we can keep digging."

"Yeah, Simon. Like I said before, you think too much sometimes. No way we're gonna die to a cave in. We're diggers! We'll just dig a hole out of the cave in and work our way up from there!" Yamato chimed in, a bit more careless with his words, earning him a smack to the head by Hibiki.

Just then, their drills happened to hit something, each of them striking the tips of their drills at the exact same time. They looked at each other, and started to dig like mad, and eventually, they found what seemed to be three glowing green eyes staring right back at them.

Meanwhile, back at the prison, Boota, having woken up, stood guard with a tiny toothpick in his paws while the three elder siblings slept like babies, each one having a snore bubble coming out of their noses and drool running down their open mouths, the most drool out of, you guessed it, Kamina. Suddenly, there was a rumbling as the the three were suddenly awoken from their peaceful slumber by the sounds of drills coming from underground. The Drill Trio looked up to see their elder siblings' surprised faces.

"Yamato, Hibiki, Simon, what's up?" Hunter asked nonchalantly. At this time of night, he was more relaxed and calmer in certain situations.

"You guys have gotta see what we dug up! Come on!" Simon said excitedly.

"Wouldn't this be a jail break, then?" Asked Kanade as they easily broke the rope that was binding their hands together.

"If the chief finds out, there's gonna be hell to pay, guys." Kamina said as they traveled in the pitch black tunnels.

"We were so excited that we forgot about that little remark." Hibiki said, a bit crestfallen.

"Well, if we get back before morning, they'll be none the wiser."

"So what is it that you guys are so excited that we had to bust our asses out of jail for you to show us, anyway?" Hunter asked, confused by their enthusiasm. He knew they were excited and all, but this seemed a bit much even for them.

"Faces! Really giant faces! You gotta see it for yourselves!" shouted Yamato gleefully. He could just imagine his brother's face when he showed them what they had found together. He would freak out!

All of a sudden, bright lights illuminated the tunnel, and there stood none other than the chief. Needless to say, he wasn't too happy.

"You've got some nerve, busting out of jail like that, you three." The chief stated to the Elder Trio.

"Hey guys... is this one of the faces you wanted to show us? I mean, it is kinda huge, but..." Kamina asked the three younger kids, while they shook their heads furiously. Hunter and Kanade just giggled silently, Hunter being much more vocal. He and Kamina didn't get along all the time, but when Kamina cracked a joke at the chief, Hunter could never help himself but to laugh.

"Shut up, you whipper snapper! I am the chief, which means I also stand guard. And you three, I know all about those extra tunnels you've been digging up!"

The Elder trio stood up in a line in front of the chief. "Leave 'em outta this. We're the guilty ones here." Kamina said truthfully. Hunter and Kanade just nodded in agreement.

The chief then whacked each of them with his sheathed blade, the three elder siblings not flinching one bit, "Oh, I know that it was you three the whole-" However, the chief was interrupted when the ground started to shake again, causing everyone to lose their balance. Along the ceiling, cracks were starting to form, until finally, it gave way, causing something massive to fall down from above.

The way it looked would fall into the description of a giant ox like face with razor sharp teeth and giant horns, with stubby arms and legs while carrying a massive club.

"So guys..." Kamina said as he put on his gar glasses, while Hunter and Kanade took fighting stances next to him, "These faces you wanted to show us, is THIS one of them?"


	2. The Power of Team Gurren's Mighty Drills!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Gurren encounters their biggest challenge as a giant mechanical monster drop from the ceiling and endangers their village. How will they manage to get out of this alive?

Everyone was stunned into complete and utter silence. The unbreakable ceiling, the very thing Kamina and his siblings had tried so many times to bust through, had actually been broken because of a giant ox like monstrosity that had crashed down into village from up above.

"Look up!" Kamina said as he pointed his index finger upwards, as a ray of light shone down on him. "That's the surface! I told you there was a surface up there! This big mug fell from the surface! From above the ceiling! Ain't that right, Mr. chief?!!" As soon as he stopped speaking, the giant creature rose from it's stunned slumber as it looked around and started swinging its club violently, causing massive amounts of destruction. Everybody started to panic, as debris ad rubble started to fall from the monster's humongous swings. Shouts of "Run!" and "It's a monster!" could be heard as well as many screams of terror. Even his siblings had stumbled slightly from the shock-waves it was creating.

Kamina looked down at the chief, who was too busy shaking in terror to even move. "What's the matter there, chief? I thought you said it was your duty to protect the village? Gosh, it's hard to tell which one of us in the liar now, ain't it?" Team Gurren's leader then laughed as he kicked the sword upwards and swung around his neck as it landed in his hand, and soon after placing it on his right shoulder.

"Guys, this way! Let's get outta here!" Simon started to say as the three elders started to walk towards the creature, "Hey guys...?!"

"Let's go, Hunter. Kanade." Kamina said as he looked towards Hunter and Kanade, who happened to have weapons of their own. Hunter's weapon was also a katana, but it looked to be a tiny bit bulkier than Kamina's, while Kanade, to most people in the village, had somehow manifested a strange orange, black, and white body armor that covered almost everywhere, save for her head and belly button after singing a chant of some sorts. In her hands was a mighty spear she had called "Gungnir."

_Croitzal ronzell Gungnir zizzl_

"Right behind ya, bro." Hunter said following close behind Kamina.

"Don't forget about me, boys!" Said Kanade rushing in to join them, her chant finally completed.

"Hey hey hey hey hey hey!" Kamina shouted to the giant monster that had stopped to look at the three humans that approached it. "You got guts, plowing into our village like this, you and that big, ugly mug of yours, you know that?!" By this point, the Drill Trio and pretty much everyone around them had started to shake and hold each other in fear. "But that ends here! We won't stand for any more of your shenanigans!"

The beast looked down upon them, its giant teeth right in their faces. "Wha? Who the hell're you?" The Drill Trio gasped in surprise.

"Hey! It talked!" Yamato said, surprised that such a thing could have the power of speech.

"Well I'm gonna tell you something important now, so you better dig the wax outta your huge ears and listen really closely!" Kamina started to speak as he raised a finger to point at the beast.

"The reputation of Team Gurren echoes far and wide! When they talk about its badass leader, The man of indomitable spirit and masculinity, they're talking about me, the Mighty Kamina! And here by my side, known to all as the man with scales and knack for tools, the man with claws that can cut through almost anything and a sword to match, is my brother, Hunter, the Half-Dragon of Justice, and, standing alongside him, the woman with a song in her heart and a sharp spear to get her point across, is none other than our sister, the Piercing Spear, Kanade!"

Silence fell around the cavern, as many people commented on how stupid Kamina was being.

"What an idiot!"

He's gone completely nuts!"

"What a total dumbass!"

"I, Kamina, and my siblings will not allow anymore lawlessness to continue!"

"Kamina..." The aforementioned man looked over to his brother, who was giving him a rather deadpan expression, "How can we be known far and wide if we're confined here to this village only?"

Kamina just grumbled, "Hey, at least it sounded cool. And is that really the kind of thing you want to focus on right now? There is literally a giant monster right in front of our faces!"

"I know, but one of us has to be the snarky one around here, and it sure as hell ain't gonna be you."

"Hey!"

Simon, Yamato, and Hibiki just looked at their elder siblings in awe as they saw them bravely standing up against something that seemed too large to conquer, at least, Simon did. Hibiki and Yamato just looked on proudly at their respective elder siblings standing alongside their leader. Suddenly, the creature started to laugh as it raised its club into the air.

"Ha ha ha ha ha! What can puny humans like you do to stop me?!"

* * *

 

Suddenly, a large bang could be heard as something fired on the creature from above. Just then, more shots could be heard as a young woman swung down on a rope from the remains of the ceiling wielding a giant sniper rifle as she skidded to a stop in front of the six members of Team Gurren. The woman was clad in a red and black flamed bikini, with finger less gloves on each hand , though one stretched up farther than the other, as well as a skull clip in her hair that was pinned in a ponytail, orange tinted glasses, a white and purple striped scarf, dark blue denim shorts, long white socks, and white boots with flame imprints.

"Alright you guys, you better get back!"

Kamina wolf whistled. "Something else from above?"

"Yeah, and it's a girl this time." Simon spoke in wonder at who this mystery girl was. Kanade just looked at her with a tinge of jealousy and curiosity. How did this girl manage to keep her hair like that, and why was she only wearing the barest of clothes? The girl then started to fire at the creature again, this time knocking it down to the ground.

"I only knocked it backwards, it can still get up and get us!" The elder trio ran alongside the new girl, curious at what she knew about this thing. Kamina, being the man that he is, decided to flirt with the girl whilst fighting . "Hey babe, come here often?" This caught the surface girl off guard.

"What?"

"So, you're gonna slug it out, huh? Let us help ya out!"

"Help out?" At this point, the group had managed to get under some cover from some nearby rubble, as to make sure that they wouldn't be spotted by the creature.

"You came from the surface, didn't you?"

"Yeah, so what?"

That's awesome! So that's a weapon they use on the surface, huh?"

"Not exactly, but something like that."

"Damn, you got a mighty fine body! Surface chicks are a breed apart!" Kanade didn't know whether to be insulted or flattered by that statement and instead decided to glower at her brother.

"Do I need to tell you again to run? Do you have a death wish?" Suddenly, a shadow loomed over their heads, as the giant's club slammed down on top of them, but it missed as Hibiki, Yamato , and Simon dug a hole large enough for the four of them to fit in.

"Hey, nice work, guys, real nice save." Said Hunter who breathed a sigh of relief.

"Come on, this way!" Said Hibiki as they started crawling around in the tunnel and gestured for them to follow. While navigating the rather narrow corridors, the surface girl decided to ask a question.

"Just where am I?"

"Jiha Village." Kamina decided to respond for the group.

"Oh, the pit next door."

"Next door?" Hunter asked, curious. How did they not know that they had neighbors nearby? And for that matter, how did this girl even know they were next door?

"I'm from Littner Village, the pit that's right next to this one."

"What the hell! You said you were from the surface!"

"I came from the surface just now, but I'm originally from Littner."

"Ah geez, you're a pit chick? Get moving thunder thighs!"

The surface girl blushed furiously while covering up her rear.

"What's with the big change in attitude?"

"This way! Hurry!" Yamato said as they navigated down a different path.

"Where exactly are we going?"

"To the faces!"

"Faces?"

"Three humongous faces!"

"You mean gunmen?"

"What the hell is a gunmen?"

"That is." The surface girl pointed out at the creature, now known as a gunmen, which was currently smashing most of Jiha village into tiny little pebbles. The surface girl whipped out her rifle and switched scope lenses.

"Give me a minute. I'm targeting its power conduits. Taking those out will stop 'em in its tracks."

The scope had finally targeted the gunmen's weak point, and she was about to fire, when Kamina decided to intervene.

"HEY! You with the big mug! We're about to take you down! So say your prayers!"

This caused the surface girl to lose her focus, and miss her target, only hitting the gunmen straight in the jaw. Noticing them, the gunmen swung its club at them, but Team Gurren and the girl managed to climb downwards, barely dodging getting smacked. Although this did not mean that Kamina dodged the combined smack to the back of his head by his brother and sister.

"NICE GOING YOU DUMB-ASS!!!" They shouted simultaneously. They then proceeded to smack him again twice for good measure.

"What did you do that for?!" The surface girl asked Kamina, bewildered. Kamina just looked back at her as if she asked a question with such an obvious answer.

"A man looks his opponent in the eye when he lets him have it!"

"I'm a woman, thank you very much!"

"Aside from Kanade, a woman has no right in a fight between men!"

"Well, aside from her, I'm the one that's doing all the fighting, here."

"I like your style, lady!"

* * *

 

Finally, they stopped, and the Drill Trio illuminated the tunnel with their illumination goggles. Right in front of them stood three large faces, one of which looked feminine.

"These are the ones? The things you wanted to show us?" Kamina asked, surprised at what they were looking at. These were down here this whole time? What else could be buried so deeply down here like this?

"Yep!" Hibiki stated proudly. She was honestly really proud of her find,

"That makes six awesome things you've dug up."

"Hey, I wonder if these are gunmen too?"

"They seem to be smaller than the one outside, but I kinda like their faces."

"Hey, check it out! These things have controls in 'em!" Kanade noticed that inside of each face, there were small controls, and a small seat, which meant that someone could pilot it from the inside.

"People ride in them? That's impossible!" The surface girl said, exasperated.

"Can we drive 'em?" Kamina asked, curious. By the look on his face, he was already coming up with a new plan.

"Hey bro! Let's use these to take out that big thing up there!" Simon said excitedly.

"Yeah, let's waste him."

Suddenly, the three mini gunmen began glowing green, and letting out a humming noises. A similar light could be seen from the other drills that the Digger Trio had dug up.

"Come on, guys, you can go for it!"

"... I think you three should be the ones to pilot it." Kamina said to Hibiki, Yamato, and Simon who gasped in surprise. They would have thought that Kamina and the others would've jumped at the chance to drive something like these. Hunter was surprised by this level of maturity from Kamina, but he didn't say anything and instead let out a little smile. For as thick as his brother was, he did know how to be mature from time to time. 

"But... We..."

"You think that we could steal these things from our little siblings? What kind of people do you think we are? You guys dug them up, so you guys get to pilot them."

"B-but we can't do this! We're not as strong as you guys are!" Yamato stammered, but Kamina was having none of that.

"You idiots, kick logic out and do the impossible! That's the way Team Gurren rolls."

The rumbling of the larger gunmen was getting louder. The Team decided that if they were going to pilot these mini gunmen, they would need to divide up the group, two to each, with the girl hopping into any of them that she chose. Hunter and Yamato took the silver and green colored one, Hibiki and Kanade took the yellow, white, and black one, and Simon, Kamina, and the surface girl took the red one.

"Come on, you guys can do it, we know you can!"

"But we don't!" The Drill Trio said simultaneously. They clearly were under some deep pressure, what with all of the village at stake. Oh, and pretty much everyone else they cared about too, there was also that.

"Listen guys, don't believe in yourselves..." That caused everyone to turn and look at Kamina.

"Believe in us! Believe in the elder siblings that believe in you!"

"And just what does that mean?" The surface girl asked Kamina as the younger trio looked down at the controls. Their eyes narrowed at the drills in their hands. Finally, they steeled their wills and readied themselves to insert their drills into the slots.

"... Alright."

"We'l try."

The Drill trio stared at the console in front of them. As they stared, they could feel as though they could see entire galaxies in them, swirling like a spiral in a never ending cycle. The sheer power stunned them for a few seconds, before Boota rushed from gunmen to gunmen, urging them to place their drills inside already. In unison, each digger placed their mini drills into the small hole in the hole in the center of the radar-like panel, and slowly, they turned it at the same time. The panels soon started glowing in a brilliant green light as the gauges filled up quickly in a spiral kind of manner. Suddenly, the machines started to radiate some strange green energy that started flowing out from inside of them, almost like they were connecting to one another. Each of the mini gunmen then extended tiny arms from the back that swiveled from behind towards the front, while the legs protracted out from the bottom of the base. All of a sudden, the seven humans could hear strange voices emanating from the gunmen themselves.

* * *

 

"All systems activated. Lagann system fully operational. Status: online."

"All systems activated. Raijin systems fully operational. Status: online."

"All systems activated. Melodia systems full operational. Status: online."

The team looked shocked: These things could talk?!

"They're working!" Simon shouted as they felt the energy build up from inside the gunmen.

"Ah, it feels good to finally be able to stretch my servos again! Oh, but man, are they killing me right now..." said an energetic male voice coming from Yamato's gunmen as it seemed to stretch its limbs and move them from side to side. This voice sounded a bit like Kamina, although a bit more robotic in a sense.

"Yeah. It feels as though we were offline for years! And I can sympathize, I haven't felt this much soreness in forever." said a female voice coming from Hibiki's gunmen as it stretched its arm joints upwards as if it was stretching from a long nap.

"Hold on guys. As much as I'm enjoying our waking up from sleep mode, I'm picking up an enemy signature on my radar about twenty nine feet above us. It's small, but it seems to be something we can handle. And don't worry about your servos, we can run a diagnostic on them later." said a tough male voice coming from Simon's gunmen. This sounded as if it was more calculating and calmer compared to the others.

"Oh relax, Lagann! Can't ya see we're trying to enjoy our activation a bit? Honestly, you could be a total buzzkill. Besides, yours must be just as sore as ours are right about now." The female gunmen said to Simon's gunmen, now known as Lagann.

"Melodia's right, Lagann. Really though, it feels as though we've been put away for a really long time. I mean, most of my memory banks are a bit of a blur. Mind checking them for me later when we're topside?" said Yamato's gunmen.

"Hmm, yes, I'll look at your systems when I can, Raijin." Lagann said to Yamato's gunmen, now known as Raijin.

"You guys... can talk?" Hibiki asked as her mini-gunmen, now named Melodia, took the time to finally look up to discover that they had pilots sitting in their cockpits. They weren't exactly the brightest of mechas, were they.

"Well, hey! I didn't notice ya there for a second! Sorry about that!" said Raijin bashfully, to which Melodia and Lagann just smacked the poor gunman in the face.

"Yeah, we must've been off for a while. I didn't know we had new pilots! Nice to meet ya, newbies!" said Melodia. The group seemed to face fault at that remark. "Also, please ignore Raijin's comment, he's, well, slow on the uptake."

"We can talk later. For now, let's move!" Said Lagann. Then, the three gunmen started to glow with the same energy from when they were awakened.

* * *

 

The energy that the three mechs were generating was building up so fast, that the three mini gunmen propelled into the air like miniature rockets, speeding their way all the way up towards the surface. They barely scraped the underside of the much larger gunmen above them, courtesy of The Drill Trio grabbing the controls and steering the mechs from crashing straight into it and instead just grazing the underside.

"Yeah! Ya did it, guys!" Shouted Kamina as he eagerly leaned forward while the mystery girl held on for dear life.

"Hey, yeah! I guess we did!" shouted Simon as he saw his other siblings flying right beside him on both sides. From what he could see, they looked as though they were having fun.

"Come on, let's rock!"

"Right behind ya, bro!"

As they sped by, the chief took notice of who was piloting the three smaller mechs.

"Wait... those are... Kamina and Simon... Yamato and Hunter... and Hibiki and Kanade?"

The three mechs stopped right in front of the giant gunmen, it's razor sharp teeth bearing down upon them.

"HA HA! I bet you weren't expecting this, you S.O.B! Even if heaven itself forgives your brutality, the mighty Lagann, alongside the great Magnum and grand Melodia, will not!"

"And what exactly are those?" the surface girl asked Kamina.

"It's these fellas' names. We heard them back in the tunnels!" Kamina said proudly as if he had said something extraordinary.

"I think I like this guy! He reminds me of me!" Raijin said, as the other two mechs sweat dropped. However, the joy was short lived when the giant gunmen slammed its club downward, with the mini gunmen barely dodging its attack. The bottoms of their feet then transformed into springs as they started to bounce around, confusing the giant gunmen.

"Hey guys! Why are you dodging? Quit running!" Kamina shouted.

"But it's gonna kill us!" said Simon as he barely dodged the next attack from their next jump.

"A real man would rather die than run!" Kamina remarked, grinning like a madman along the way. The thrill of a fight seemed to push him even further into the heat of battle, making him want to pummel his opponent into the ground even more.

Suddenly, the gunmen slammed all three of the mini gunmen at once, knocking off all of their passengers except for the pilots, all of them landing directly on top of something big and metallic.

"We're on top of its head?!!" The surface girl shouted as they tried to dodge the gunmen's claw. They managed to scramble away as fast as they could, blocking the incoming attacks with the weapons in their hands. Meanwhile, the Drill trio shook themselves back into reality, causing them to look and see their older siblings in trouble. Just as they were about to be squashed flat by the gunmen's hand, however, it was stopped abruptly, being held in its place by a struggling Hunter, buckets of sweat dripping off of his face.

"W-What the-?!" The surface girl cried out in shock, while Kamina and Kanade just breathed a sigh of relief.

"Nice job, Hunter! You got him!" Kanade shouted, cheering him on, despite knowing he was still on the back foot.

"C-c-can't hold him back much l-l-longer. K-kamina, h-hurry up and take him down already..." Hunter rasped out, his breath ragged and his limbs starting to tremble. Suddenly, the mechanical hand quickly pulled back, staggering the abnormally strong young man and, just as quickly, grabbed him by the waist and lifted him up into the air. With his diminished strength, Hunter could barely move around in gunmen's grip, unable to even move the finger joints.

"Grah! You little pest!" the gunmen bellowed out waving Hunter around like a little boy would an action figure. His brother and sister could only watch in abject horror at their sibling being handled so recklessly.

"Some-one-help-me! I'm-gonna-be-sick!" Hunter yelled out, his voice getting louder and pained as he was flailing about. Kanade, having had enough of her brother being treated like a toy, decided to step up to the plate and threw her spear at one of the gunmen's fingers. The velocity and strength of the impact damaged the finger greatly, causing Hunter to fall back onto the gunmen's head, dazed, but all around fine.

"T-thanks, Kanade..." Hunter managed to sputter out. The damage to his ribs was really just an afterthought right now.

"Thank me later when we get out of this alive, alright?"

"We gotta help 'em out!" Yamato called towards the other diggers as they were struggling to hold onto the club with their mechs' might. He was used to being protected by his older siblings, but now it was their turn to save them.

"We gotta make... the impossible possible! That's how... Team Gurren... Rolls!" Simon tried to shout, straining himself while trying to simultaneously hold on to the club with Lagann. The gunmen seemed to understand what the boy was saying, and prepared to swing into action.

"Alright, you better hang on!!!" Shouted Lagann as he leaped onto the club but then stumbled, tumbling over himself and Simon, before they were able to start running as fast as they could to get to Kamina and the others.

"I'm coming, bro!" Simon shouted as Hibiki and Yamato, alongside Melodia and Raijin, followed suit. They couldn't let their youngest brother have all the fun, right?

As the elder siblings and the new girl held on to their weapons, they were saved the trouble when the three mini gunmen slammed into the giant hand. Wasting no time, the elder siblings climbed back into their respective mini gunmen.

"Good one you guys, really nice work!" Kamina said to the diggers, who were breathing heavily from the rush they felt. Yamato took a few moments to check on his older brother, who had taken the most damage the entire fight. Luckily, if they were able to make it out of this alive, they should be able to treat his injuries pretty quickly. "Come on, let's jump! Make 'em jump!" The surface girl said as she tapped the side of Lagann with her hand.

"Hey! Quit wasting time and hurry up!" The gunmen then raised its club and was about to flatten the three gunmnen on its head, but as the diggers gripped the controls, strange canopies covered the tops of the mini gunmen's open cockpit, Lagann's struggling for a bit since there were two other passengers instead of one.

As the massive gunmen's club slammed into the three mini gunmen, it rolled off the sides of the canopies and smacked the gunmen right on the head, knocking him down and, supposedly, taking him out of the fight.

The three gunmen landed close by on some rubble. Inside, Kanade, Hibiki, Yamato, and Hunter all let out a sigh of relief, while Kamina, the surface girl, and Simon, were all feeling a little squished.

"Hey... nice... work... with the canopies... you guys..." Kamina struggled to say as he was being a little compressed in some ways not humanly possible.

"It's a little bit cramped, though..." said the surface girl. Both Kanade and Hunter counted themselves lucky that they wouldn't have to be that squeezed like their brothers were.

Everyone outside of those within the three gunmen were stunned at how such a large monster could be taken down just like that. To think that three little machines could take out such a hulking monster. Using this opportunity, the trio of small gunmen checked every visible part of the gunmen to see if there was anything that might show it was still functioning.

"Alright! You guys took him down! Knew you had it in ya, Yamato!" Hunter exclaimed in a rather coarse voice as they felt the gunmen for any signs that it was still moving. Much to their relief, it seemed to be immobile.

"I guess these things are as hard as rocks."

"Don't underestimate us just because we're small!!" Melodia said as she patted her dome like head. She seemed rather proud of it.

"Our bodies are able to withstand any kind of extreme pressure. That's why we were in perfect working condition when you guys found us." Lagann said as they were making their way back to help the other villagers. Suddenly, they heard someone scream, and just before they could turn around, the gunmen swooped down on them and snatched them all up in its humongous jaws. The three mini mechs weren't damaged, but they were being bumped around in its massive teeth.

"I... have... you... now!!!" It bellowed slowly as it tried to grind the three mini gunmen into paste. Lagann and Raijin were being ground up, while Melodia somehow got trapped inside of the gunmen's mouth entirely, bouncing back and forth between its the top and bottom of its jaws and teeth.

"Once I'm done with all of you, I'm gonna squash each and every little human insect here for irritating me to no end!" It groaned again, scaring the already terrified villagers hiding amongst the rubble even more.

"We're done for, it's so cramped!" The surface girl said in between moans as she felt the pressure of being compressed by the gunmen's teeth.

"Hey, quit making those weird little sounds over there!" Kamina shouted, faring no better than any of the others.

"Dammit!" Simon shouted as his face was pressed up against the panel where he placed his key. He didn't want to die. Not here, and certainly not now. Not when his brothers and sisters were counting on him.

"Power..." Yamato muttered as he was struggling to hold on to Raijin's controls. His brother was doing his best to keep the canopy from crushing them as much as he could, but in his current condition, he was struggling to even do that.

"...Need more power!" Hibiki said as she only had one hand around one of Melodia's handles, trying to help Kanade with pushing the canopy upwards. Her lack of connection over Melodia's controls was causing her to lose power faster than the others.

"I... didn't... expect... this... kind... of... pressure... " Lagann said as he could feel some of his circuits being crushed by the gunmen. Despite his actions of moving about and using his arms to pry the teeth open, the best he could do was to only struggle in vain.

"I wasn't ready to go down this way! Not after just waking up so soon!" Raijin shouted as he tried to hold back the teeth from impaling him and his comrades.

"I regret nothing up to this point in my life! I have no regrets! At least I think I don't!" Melodia said, somehow bouncing around between the teeth.

Boota then noticed the key in Lagann's panel shaking slightly, as did Simon. Slowly, the diggers reached for their keys and twisted them, the gauges filling up even faster.

Outside, the gunmen's teeth started to crack, when all of a sudden, three drills popped out of its mouth, breaking the gunmen's teeth, forcing it to spit out the three gunmen that resided in its mouth.

"Drills?" Kamina asked, surprised that a weapon could fit in such a tiny mech.

"They just, sorta popped out." Simon said, looking at the other two mini gunmen, noticing that they had drills popping out of their heads as well.

"Those are your kind of weapons! They're the perfect matches!"

The three mini gunmen landed side by side, staring defiantly at the giant gunmen before them with a fierce and fiery passion.

"Bro, I think we'll be able to get the job done with this!" Yamato said as they landed, the fire in their eyes never going out for a second.

"Alright! Smash us into that big ugly mug! Let it feel the power of Team Gurren's mighty drills!"

Simon grit his teeth as he, Hibiki, and Yamato all gripped the handles inside of their respective mini gunmen, as the gauge inside the panels started filling up faster. The three mini gunmen and their pilots let out roars of power as their arms retracted to reveal larger drills than the ones that they used to break the gunmen's teeth.

"Yeah do it guys! Bust through the heavens with your drills!!!" The elder trio shouted as the surface girl looked at them in awe.

The giant gunmen tried to crush them again with its club, but the 9 drills were spinning so fast that they demolished the club along with the gunmen's arm. The mini gunmen roared as they started to push the gunmen upwards into the hole that it created so fast, that they propelled themselves like rockets and shot straight upward, taking the broken gunmen with them, and leaving a massive trail of dust in their wake.

The gunmen's screams of pain and agony were lost on deaf ears as the mini gunmen continued to pummel it with their drills, the jets from their backs propelling them higher and higher.

"Adios Jiha village, we're going up to the surface! The surface I saw as a kid!" Kamina shouted proudly to no one but himself, looking back down from where the team came from.

Simon, who was gritting his teeth, couldn't help but smirk. This was it! This was what Kamina and his siblings had been striving for for several years now! They coudln't stop now, they were so close! The propulsion was so powerful, that when they popped out of the ground, the dust had yet to settle, yet they still flew even higher into the air. The gunmen was beyond saving at this point, and was soon ripped apart limb from limb, This caused the gunmen to spin to spin in midair, This motion caused the cloaks of the diggers to fly off, but they were so stunned at the sight that they didn't seem to care. It was that certain time of day when both night and day collided, an astounding beauty that could only be found in the rarest of times.

Kamina and Simon were stunned at how the surface looked. The sheer spectacle was astounding to say the least.

"So this is the surface?" Kamina asked as Hunter, Yamato, Hibiki, and Kanade nodded their heads in unison. This caused him to smile. He did it! After so long, he finally did it! No, not just him. He had his siblings to thank for everything they'd done to help him get here. They deserved just as much credit as he did for this. Especially Simon. He really went all out today.

"Wow, it's even brighter than I remember! At least, if I actually could remember... " Melodia said, amazed at the view.

"It's... so beautiful!" Simon said, wonder filling his eyes.

"It's Yoko." The surface girl said, causing all of Team Gurren to look in her direction. "Yoko's my name. I never introduced myself, did I?"

"Well, no, come to think of it.." Simon started to say as Kamina leaned on his head, and glasses on his face.

"I'm Kamina! And this is Simon." Kamina said as he placed his hand on Simon's head.

"I'm Hunter, and this is my brother Yamato." Hunter started to say, looking down at his bother with a proud smile. His little brother went above and beyond the call of duty today, that was for sure.

"I'm Kanade, and this bundle of energy is my little sister, HIbiki." Kanade said as Hibiki flashed a grin. That was the most fun she and her sister had had ever since they joined Team Gurren, not counting their numerous failed attempts at getting up to the surface of course.

"Nice to meet you." Yoko said, when suddenly, her cleavage began to move and out popped Boota, surprising everybody.

"Um, what is this little furry thing that's been hiding out in my breasts?" Yoko asked, pointing to Boota, who looked up at the red haired girl in surprise. He thought he had climbed into Kanade's chest, but then again, they did both have red hair, so it was an honest mistake on his part.

The digger trio blushed, embarrassed that their pet could get away with something as rude as that.

"Boota!" Hibiki scolded the little pig-mole.

"Behave yourself!" Simon added in, also upset with what the pig-mole had been doing.

"A tasty morsel hiding in more tasty morsels..." Kamina thought out loud. Kanade remembered when Boota did the exact same thing to her. It was cute, but she still had to remove him from there if they wanted to go through with one of Team Gurren's earlier plans. Though she still let him in there from time to time, just for the warm feeling on her chest.

"Hey is it just me, or are we all falling?" Yoko asked, causing the team to notice that she was right, the ground seemed to be approaching at a somewhat slow rate.

"Hey, the thruster's out, do something, guys!" Kamina shouted to the team, desperately.

"It's no use, our tanks are depleted of energy! Brace yourselves!" Lagann stated as everyone sweat-dropped.

"Great..." Yoko muttered, as gravity decided to kick in, causing them to fall to the ground even faster. Soon, the three mini gunmen were plummeting faster and faster towards the ground. If they didn't do something fast, they would fall all the way back down to Jiha Village.

"We're falling! Try to hold on tight!!" Kamina shouted, hanging on to Lagann for dear life.

The diggers managed to close the canopies just before they hit the ground, but the sudden force of the impact caused them to pop out of their gunmen and onto the surface's rough sand. Everyone groaned as they lay flat across the ground, gunmen included.

"Talk about a rough reception..." Kamina groaned, his eyes closed due to being in so much pain. Hunter could only groan even more, his injuries from earlier feeling more and more severe with each bit of movement.

"Yeah, no kidding..." Simon said as he struggled to get up. Looking upwards, he noticed that he had accidentally landed on top of Yoko. Gasping in surprise, Simon quickly got up.

"I-I'm sorry!" Simon stuttered out, a little embarrassed by the turn of events. Yoko looked up towards him and smiled gently, knowing the boy didn't mean it. But then, Yoko gasped, and drew Simon closer to her as she looked upwards at something big.

"Oh great, out of the frying pan..." Yoko started to say. When the team looked up they noticed two giant silhouettes looming over them, both with menacing faces, staring down at them hungrily.

"... And into the fire."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! And please, make sure to comment on what I need to improve on and change to make this story better! 
> 
> Edit: Also, the reason that the gunmen talk in this story is because I got inspired by another fanfic on fanfiction.net and wanted to try my hand at the concept.


	3. Our journey Won't Stop til We Pierce the Heavens!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The members of Team Gurren find themselves in unknown territory as they are about to be trampled by their enemies! Luckily, they're saved at the last minute and are welcomed to join Yoko back to her village nearby.

The team didn't know if things took a turn for the good or the bad as they stared at the two gunmen looming over them, ready to strike at any given moment. The elders were trained in combat, sure, but against things like these? They weren't sure they were up to the task, especially Hunter, who was still injured from the fight with the other gunmen earlier. Well, except for Kamina, who seemed like he was raring to go at any second.

"Humans..." One of them groaned out. This one seemed to have been modeled in a skull like design.

"...Sighted." The other one bellowed out. This was more or less modeled after something akin to a cat.

"Dammit, there were more of them up here!" Kamina grunted, albeit both excited and worried at the same time. Taking on one seemed easy enough, but now there were more of them, plus they were out of fuel to fight them with. This wasn't exactly a good position to be in. Not to mention his brother's injuries still needed to be looked at, which would be a hindrance in the fight rather than helpful.

"Everyone, get behind me!" Yoko shouted as they started to clamber behind her. She picked up her rifle and pulled the trigger, but the rifle only let out a pathetic little "click".

"No ammo?!!" Yoko yelled out, shocked. Now the only thing standing between the team and certain death was a spear, two swords, and the three mini gunmen, and one of those swords was currently being held by a man who had his ribs crushed from the previous skirmish. However, luck appeared to be on their side, when all of a sudden, one of the gunmen was lit up like a Christmas tree as it was sprayed with thousands upon thousands of bullets from nowhere.

"Auugh!!!" The skull faced gunmen shouted, feeling the heat of every single bullet, trying to cover itself to lessen the blows. The team stood stunned for a few moments when another voice called out to them from afar. There in the distance were several other humans, dressed in similar outfits shooting bullets like crazy at the gunmen in front of them.

"Hey Yoko! You okay?!" It was a male's voice calling out to them from behind a few rocks. The group turned around to see a dark skinned man with dark brown hair in a white tank top and light blue pants wielding a sub-machine gun and firing at the gunmen with another group of people who also had SMGs in their possession. Yoko's expression seemed to brighten as Team Gurren ducked to avoid getting caught up in the blast zone.

"Dayakka!" Yoko shouted, feeling relieved at seeing a familiar face.

"Friend of yours?" Kanade asked Yoko, hoping that their saviors would finish up quickly. It

"Yep! They all are!"

As the gunmen was reaching its limit and started shutting down, something popped out from the inside of its mouth. It was a small furry creature roughly about the same size as a human. It ran for cover as its mech was continuously pounded by bullets.

"Hey! Something popped out!" Hunter exclaimed, surprised.

"It looks kind of like a beast. Or is that a really hairy man?" Kanade muttered out loud, squinting while she tried to get a better look at the strange creature. Sure enough, there was a lot of fur covering it from head to toe.

The enemy gunmen looked like it couldn't take much more of the assault, and soon started smoking from multiple areas of its body. A few seconds later, the parts and areas around the gunmen exploded, and it went down with a resounding thud.

"Aw... My gunmen...!" The furry creature, who took the opportunity to hide behind a large rock, cried out as it watched the massive mech crash into the ground in a fiery heap.

The other gunmen picked up the furry creature in between its massive fingers, careful not to squash its comrade in the process.

"We can't do anything about it right now. It's almost sundown, come on we gotta go."

And with that, the gunmen ran for the hills, quite literally, with the creature screaming and cursing all the way, promising to return and finish things tomorrow.

"What was that thing?" Hibiki asked, somewhat confused by the recent events that had transpired. Honestly, she was just about done with everything today, and was ready to just sleep her problems away. Preferably in a warm bed somewhere safe and away from any kind of fighting.

"It looked to me like a furry hobo." said Yamato, earning a little bit of raspy laughter from his elder brother. No matter what the situation they were in, he could always count on Yamato to crack a joke.

"My scanners indicate that they are some kind of cross between an animal and a human. Although their anatomy seems to suggest something else entirely." said Lagann, his eyes flashing green for a few seconds before returning to normal.

"They're beastmen." Yoko said as she walked up from behind the group, "They come out during the day and attack us, but we're always able to send them packing. They usually leave us alone when sunset starts rolling in."

Kamina looked over to Yoko in surprise, "You mean to say that you've been fighting those things your whole life?" he asked, stunned. There was no way these things had been around for that long, right?

"That's right." With that, Yoko started walking towards the wrecked machine. Well that answered Kamina's question. With that, Yoko walked towards the wreckage, rifle slung over her shoulder.

"I'll fill you in on the details later."

A few hours had passed as more of the armed humans started stripping the giant robot for its multiple parts, such as motherboards, wires, and other small pieces of equipment. Thankfully, for Hunter, they managed to find someone among the armed humans that could tend to his injuries, and was patched up in no time.

Meanwhile, Team Gurren was staring up into the night sky, thinking about all that had happened up to this point in their journey to the surface. Kamina, who was currently sitting on Lagann's right shoulder, looked to the heavens and smiled.

"I'm here dad, just like I promised..." He said to himself. Hunter looked over to him from Raijin with a questionable look on his face.

"Kamina?" He asked the leader of Team Gurren , who just looked at him with a smile.

"Ah, it's nothing." He simply flashed his brother a grin and resumed to look up into the brightly lit sky.

"Just look at this place, Simon! All of these lights in the sky? The surface is just full of wonders, isn't it? Just like Hunter and Kanade said." Simon just nodded in amazement, looking up at the brightly it sky, patterned with tiny little lights.

"The big light's the moon. The smaller ones are called stars." said Yoko as she perched herself on Lagann's left shoulder.

Kamina and Simon looked at her confused, while the other siblings just smiled, reminding themselves of the times they would spend watching the night sky when they snuck out of Jiha Village on different occasions just to get a glimpse of the nightly wonders, at least in their dreams, anyway.

"They were sometimes celebrated as deities by people who lived on the surface long ago, since everybody admired just how high in the sky they were." Hunter said, surprising Yoko.

"Wait, you mean you've been here before?" She asked. Kanade just shrugged.

"Well, it's been a while, so I'm not really sure if it's true or not anymore."

"Oh."

"I guess that means that the people who lived up here before gave them those names." Simon stated. Kamina looked as though someone issued him a challenge. If they could go that far with naming things that high in the sky, then maybe passed the moon and stars were things waiting to be named.

"Oh my! Who's this darling little fellow here~?" A voice coming from a location near Raijin slurred out. Raijin, surprised, jumped a bit off the ground and ran next to Lagann, breathing in and out through his mechanical mouth. How a machine was able to breathe like a human was still unknown.

"What's got you spooked, Raijin?" Lagann asked, confused.

" *gasp* And they talk?! How absolutely incredible!" This time it was Lagann's turn to jump and run, but instead ran towards Melodia with Raijin in tow. The voice was coming from a quite thin looking man, but if one were to look at him, he would have been mistaken for a woman rather easily. He had rather short green hair as well as rather warm looking clothes considering the environment surrounding them.

"I need to have a look at these beauties! They are rather cute, aren't they?" Instead of jumping and running like the other two, Melodia seemed to blush, while the other two mini-gunmen face faulted into the dirt. They were warriors! Not something cute!

"We're not cute, we're fierce!" Both Magnum and Lagann shouted while flailing their arms around in protest. They were just blatantly ignored, much to their chagrin.

"Hey, Leeron, you can analyze them later. Come on, you gotta help us with this." Dayakka shouted from afar.

"Oh fine. Coming!" The man, now known as Leeron shouted before getting up and walking towards the wreckage. This caused Raijin and Lagann to sigh in relief.

"The lights in old Jiha village have nothing on all these bright lights in the sky. What were they called again, Kanade?" Kamina asked, looking back at his sister for reference.

"The moon and the stars."

"Ah. Thanks."

"I still wonder why the people who lived up here gave them those simple names in the first place." Hunter said, still mystified about how many stars there were in the sky that night. He could think back to all the lights in Jiha and how easy it was to count them all. Here, though? It felt it would take him forever just to count up to a hundred at least.

"Why do you say that, hon?"

"Yikes!" Hunter was startled by Leeron's sudden appearance that he fell right into Raijins empty cockpit. Yamato quickly rushed over from his resting spot and tried pulling Hunter's feet, trying to pull him back out.

"Well..." Hibiki decided to say in Hunter's place, "It's because we don't see these kinds of things very often. I mean, we see water and food often, so it's easy to name them. Even for Boota, it was easy to name him since we see him all the time." Boota lifted his head and nuzzled Hibiki's leg, happy that he was helpful in a situation. The girl just smiled and pet him on the head.

"Whatever you say, but I must admit, that is a rather interesting way of thinking." Hibiki just blushed at the compliment. She didn't really think of it as interesting.

Leeron then brought out a strange little contraption and started fiddling with it using his fingers. On the screen, it showed several lines of text that seemed to analyze the different energy levels of the mini gunmen.

"What's that?" Simon asked curiously.

"It's my personal computer. I use it to collect data on many interesting little things. Like these tiny mechs here." Leeron said, tapping away as the screen showed different pictures and words. However, Simon couldn't make heads or tails of anything that flashed on the screen.

"What are those squiggly lines?"

"Huh? You don't know how to read?"

"Read..." Simon drew out the word as if it was a foreign concept, which in his case, it was.

"Hey bro, do you know how to do that?"

"Beats me. How 'bout you guys?" Kamina asked the other members of Team Gurren. They only shook their heads, much to Kamina's displeasure.

"Well we did find some things that looked like paper, but they were so muddled up and dirty that we couldn't form a single word, much less a sentence." Kanade sighed sadly.

"In any case, it might've been a possibility that humans really did live on the surface." Leeron said, a little more downtrodden than usual, "Although there were other records that said they didn't."

"Wait, how is that even possible?" Hunter asked, confused about the whole ordeal. Of course there were humans that lived on the surface. They just moved underground for some reason. At least, that's what Hunter thought or believed to be the case. He suspected the gunmen had something to do with it too, if their actions earlier were anything to go by.

"I guess it's also like how I'm either a man or a woman, or maybe even neither."

"Well who are you, by the way?" Yamato asked, genuinely confused by Leeron's statement.

"I'm Leeron, but you can call me Ron, or even "Beautiful Queen~" Leeron said as he gussied himself over to Kamina.

"I'd rather die!!!" Kamina shouted as he inched himself farther and farther away from Leeron as quickly as possible.

"You may not know this, but Leeron here is our expert on pretty much everything. He helps by taking care of our technological stuff as well as repairing our weapons." Yoko said proudly.

"Really? Then I guess you are useful!" Hunter said with a smile.Finally, someone could help him out with all the repairs for tools and supplies Team Gurren needed whenever they needed.

"I can help you with anything you might need. And I do mean anything~"

Kamina had put on his shades and drawn his nodachi blade halfway.

"Die, you!" He muttered as Hunter and Yamato tried to prevent him from committing senseless murder. Yoko, deciding to break the ice and cut in to the conversation.

"So, anyway! Simon, Hibiki, Yamato, there's something I need to ask of you." Yoko said, hoping to break up the tension. The three whose names were called looked at her.

"I need you and your gunmen to carry this thing for me." Yoko then pointed towards the destroyed gunmen from earlier, which was now mostly just pieces of scrap that couldn't be salvaged or were too tough to move.

Simon looked at Lagann, who seemed to shrug. It was hard knowing what body gestures a head with arms and leg could actually make without any kind of shoulders.

"I guess we could try." Lagann said, being rather uncertain himself. After climbing back into their cockpits, the Digger Trio then pulled out the small keys they used to activate the three gunmen in the first place.

"What's that ya got there? It's kinda pretty." Simon looked over and noticed that Yoko had gotten surprisingly close to get a better view of the key. This also meant that her body was in a better viewing point for Simon to look at her "assets." Realizing he was being rude, Simon quickly inserted his key into the panel in front of him, the others following suit. Pretty soon, the panels flared to life with a radiant green energy, but the energy gauge didn't fill all the way. Everyone nearby, including Leeron and Kamina, were stunned by how much power the three tiny mechs were giving off.

"Hmm. not at full power, but this should suffice for now." Raijin said, flexing his arms and legs, while Lagann was stretching his back and Melodia was hopping up and down, seeming to test to see if they were at full working order.

"Sounds to me like you guys are working just fine. Now come on you three. The stuff we need is right over here" Obediently, the three mechs followed alongside Yoko, as the Elder Trio just watched on.

"Huh, I wonder how they were able to make those things move." Kamina said, raising his glasses a bit in confusion.

"I guess that those three are rather special~" Leeron said in his usual tone. Hunter eyed him warily.

"Look, just stay away from Simon and the others, alright? Please?" Kanade asked politely. She didn't want her siblings to be traumatized by this man's "enthusiasm."

"Oh... Well..." Leeron looked at the elder trio, stars in his eyes, "Then... how about... You?"

Kamina and Hunter drew their blades while Kanade drew her lance, distancing themselves as far away from Leeron as possible. Unfortunately for Kamina and Kanade, they had to carry Hunter who still couldn't move all that well due to his bandages, so they looked awkward a lot more than they did intimidating.

"Die!!!" They all said simultaneously, trying not to blush in embarrassment of their situation. Leeron just chuckled. 

"It's called a sense of humor, sweeties. Do try to loosen up." And with that, he walked away to help with the salvaging of the rest of the scrap. The three of them scowled. They did have a sense of humor, but not towards the kinds of jokes Leeron was thinking up.

Later that night, the three mini gunmen were pulling along the entire wreckage, as well as the people who assisted them in taking down the giant robot, along with all of Team Gurren.

"I'm really sorry about all of this." Dayakka said, a little bit concerned for how much the team was pulling, which happened to be quite a lot.

"You're village was damaged because of our screw up and now we're making you carry all of this back to our base. We really appreciate the help. If there's anything you need from us, just ask." Even though Kanade was a little miffed about having to pull the entire broken down gunmen, at least they apologized and said they were grateful.

"We've got to make sure to put to use every single piece of scrap we can get. If we had a little bit more supplies, things would be different." Yoko said. To this Hunter understood completely. During his time fixing the tools back in Jiha village, he would sometimes run out of the material needed to fix some of the equipment used around the village, mostly for the drills needed to dig even deeper down into the ground. He could sympathize with running out of stuff to use for fixing.

Suddenly, the trio stopped, as Simon and Kamina looked on at something poking up from the dirt.

"What's wrong, you guys?" Yoko asked, concerned.

"What the hell's that?" Kamina asked pointing at the object in question. Hunter and Kanade shuddered, knowing exactly what it was. It was something they hoped they wouldn't have to see for a long, long time. Preferably in the very far flung future when they were old, pale, and wrinkly.

"Something that once belonged to a person who died fighting the beastmen." Yoko said, sadly. This caused Simon to shudder a bit. Is this what it meant to die? To be reduced to nothing but your bones? Is this what his parents would look like now if he found them buried underneath the ground?

After a little while, the skull was buried underneath a pile of dirt, with a post marking it as a persons grave.

"There. That oughtta take care of it." Dayakka said, wiping the sweat from his brow.

"We couldn't just leave them out here. We have to at least pay our respects to whoever it was." Yoko said. Yamato and Hibiki just nodded their heads, agreeing with the people of Littner.

"Ha! Sounds pretty pathetic if you bought it out here." Kamina scoffed, his head held high. To die somewhere like this seemed pretty pansy to him. Kanade glared and smacked the man upside the head, but otherwise said nothing while Hunter just face-palmed. Of course Kamina had to say something to ruin the moment.

"Hey! You never know when you're gonna bite it out here." Yoko scolded, slightly upset that Kamina disregarded death so easily. At this, Kanade looked at Yoko gratefully, whispering a silent thank you to the other red head.

"Never gonna happen!" Kamina retorted, "Our path doesn't end until we pierce the heavens! Right guys?" The rest of Team Gurren nodded, somewhat confident in their leaders' path towards tomorrow.

Pretty soon, after moving on from the burial site, Leeron started flashing a light in a pattern, which was reciprocated by a light shining in the distance. Soon after, a much brighter light began to shine in front of them, and they approached what appeared to be a massive gate.

"Well, welcome to Littner Village." Dayakka said with a smile, as Team Gurren marveled at the sight.

"Littner was once an underground village like yours, but there was an accident, and pretty soon it became uninhabitable. So we had to come to the surface, and when we did, the gunmen were waiting for us, giving us no choice but to fight back." Yoko explained.

"Heh..." Kamina scoffed, "... So you mean to tell me you've been fighting your whole life?" At this Yoko nodded.

"That's exactly the kind of world I was looking for!"

Once they were inside, the soldiers were quick to distribute the many pieces that they forged among the people. Many of the villagers were seen gathered around the three mini gunmen, who were all soaking in the glances they were getting.

"Gee, I didn't think we'd be THIS popular to humans..." Melodia said with a smile. Raijin, meanwhile, was busy trying to get a few kids to stop climbing into his cockpit.

"No no no, kids. I am not a toy to be played with! Please stop before you get hurt! Hey! Hey! Out of the cockpit, please!" Raijin tried to reason, but to no avail. Luckily, the parents were close by to hold them from doing anything drastic.

As the night drew onward, Yoko decided to bring Team Gurren some food after all of their hard work. When she did find them, however, they were bunched up into a group, sleeping with their younger siblings resting on their shoulders. Yoko smiled and draped their bodies with a massive blanket.

"No wonder they'd be so tired. Today's just been a day of firsts for them." Yoko said to no one as she watched the siblings snooze the night away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Again, please comment down below on what I need to change or improve on to make this story better!


	4. We said We're Gonna Pilot Those Things, Okay?!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Gurren has their first official fight against the Gunmen, and learn the shocking truth of the earthquakes that robbed Simon of his parents.

"Take a look around, kid. It's the surface!" A man said as he held the hand of a young blue-haired boy, with four more kids looking around in awe. Before him was a vast open wasteland, open skies as far as his tiny eyes could see. All around, he could see absolutely nothing. No walls, no ceiling, no anything.

"There's nothing here..." The blue haired boy said as he looked around at the barren wasteland.

"Exactly. No walls, no ceiling. This is truly a man's world." The man said confidently, his cape blowing through the breeze. The little boy looked up to the man as he breathed in what he believed was true freedom.

"So, are you ready to go?" The blue haired boy shuffled his feet, unsure if he really was ready for such a world.

"... I see..." The man muttered as he rustled the boys hair, and proceeded to walk towards the sunlight his jewelry clinking with very single step.

"When you become a real man and you're truly ready, you and your friends come up and join me, okay?" He called out as the boy raised his arm as if to stop him. The other kids just held him back before he could do anything reckless.

"Look after everyone for me. Farewell Kamina!" Kamina's father waved goodbye to his son and his friends, only looking back once. "Goodbye!" 

* * *

A loud boom shook the ground, rustling the snoring members of Team Gurren out of their peaceful slumber, and knocking off Boota's glasses in the process. It may not have been the best way to wake up in the morning, but it was definitely effective.

"Ah! What the hell?!!" Kamina shouted, his gar glasses falling onto his face, while Boota tried desperately tried to find his own glasses on the ground. Quickly picking themselves off the ground, they rushed outside to find whatever the source of the crash was.

As they ran outside to find the source of the crash, Yoko was already up and preparing for the long day ahead of them when she noticed that the siblings were awake and screaming, flailing their arms around like mad.

"Morning." She stated calmly. This caused all six of them to rush up to her, somewhat surprising her for a brief moment before calming down.

"What was that?!" Kamina asked, shocked and confused as to why they were awoken by such a loud noise. His siblings shared the same thoughts, and were quick to ask the same question.

"Every morning starts off with the gunmen. Would you kids like some morning coffee?" Leeron asked, offering up a mug of the stuff.

"The hell's that? Dirty water?" Kamina decided to take the cup, regardless of what was going on around him right now.

Hunter only leaned away from his own cup. He really wasn't enjoying the taste of the coffee. It was way too bitter for his liking. Kanade, meanwhile had already downed her cup in one motion, and was quick to ask for another one.

Suddenly, a hammer was heard banging onto a piece of metal. Kamina looked around, confused, while everyone else just turned towards the sound.

"Here comes another one." Leeron said, almost sounding bored. It was tense for a few brief moments, before another tremor shook the earth, causing Kamina to lose a grip on the mug he was holding and spilling the coffee all over himself, sending him into a panic while Hibiki and Kanade chased after him and tried to wash him off with some cold water.

"AH!! HOT! HOT! HOT COFFEE! HOT!"

"These... tremors..." Simon muttered to himself, suddenly finding them to be somewhat familiar.

"Two days in a row? Man, this is gonna be tough." Dayakka said, SMG already in hand.

"There's usually a bigger gap in between attacks. Maybe it's payback for yesterday." Yoko wondered, readying her sniper rifle in anticipation. She loaded her satchel with the necessary ammo needed for fighting gunmen, while also grabbing a few pistols just in case.

"Whatever the reason is, we gotta fight 'em!" Kamina stated as he was being dowsed in cold water by Hibiki.

"How about we keep our opinions to ourselves before we go swords swinging, okay?" Yoko asked before handing Kamina a rather small pistol. Kamina looked over to see that Hunter and Kanade had received new weapons themselves. Hunter had received what looked to be a standard sub-machine gun, while Yoko had gotten a weapon similar to Yoko's, although not as big or as long, but still looked pretty strong on its own.

"Think you know how to shoot?"

"Don't get smart with me, missy. Just who the hell do you think I am?!" Kamina shouted before taking the gun and stashing it into his pants. He then proceeded to place a reassuring hand on Simon, but it came in too fast and resulted in a hard slap that left behind a red imprint.

"Alright Simon, you and your siblings go and get Lagann, Raijin, and Melodia and meet us outside." Kamina said confidently.

"A-are ya sure ya want us to pilot them, bro? You might be able to drive them better than we can, anyway." Simon asked, concerned. Yamato and Hibiki stood by him, also unsure of whether they should pilot their mini gunmen for this fight. Kamina just shook his head.

"No way, those guys belong to you. Besides, the way you were piloting them yesterday was great!" Kamina said, trying to reassure them of their greatness.

Hunter placed a reassuring hand on Simon's shoulder, smiling softly at the boy.

"Don't worry, Simon, we'll keep this bastard alive. It's our job, after all." Hunter said in a confident tone. He was now dressed up in a white tank top, with his usual sweater and brand new pants alongside his usual shoes. Kamina just glared at Hunter for the last comment, but said nothing.

"And we'll have you guys there to back us up, too. It'll be fine." Kanade said, as she walked over to the other soldiers with a brand new sleeveless jacket adorning her back. Towards her, Kamina flashed a wide grin and a thumbs up, which Kanade returned in kind.

"We'll see you out there, you guys! So you'd better hurry up!" Kamina shouted as he, Hunter, Kanade, and the rest of the Littner soldiers ran off to the battlefield, weapons in hand.

Simon, Yamato, Hibiki, and Boota watched on until Leeron called them over to their mini gunmen. Simon was now sporting a brand new blue coat with red stripes along the sides. Yamato, much like his older brother, was dressed in a white tank top and new brown shorts, while Hibiki was also dressed in a tank top, but was small enough for her "assets" to somewhat be shown underneath her sarashi. When they got to Lagann, Raijin, and Melodia, they were stretching their robotic limbs, ready to get into the action.

"I spent all night polishing these beauties. Aren't they just gorgeous?" Leeron asked with a small glint in his eyes. It was true. Compared to yesterday, when the three gunmen were completely dusty and worn, they looked like they were brand new, right off the assembly line.

"I have to admit..." Lagann said, admiring his new gleaming red polish in a nearby mirror, "... he did a really nice job. And not a single scuff, either! Although he did seem to reach some... questionable areas."

"Yeah..." Raijin confirmed, his shiny silver arms and body glistening in the light, "... I look even better than when I was built! If I can remember when that was, that is."

"Hmm... Not bad! Not bad at all!" Melodia hummed, focusing on her light yellowish plating that reminded Hibiki of a bright and sunny day.

"Anyway..." Leeron trailed off, "Just hop in and use your core drills to spin on!"

"Spin on?" Yamato asked, rather confused about the term.

"Insert your core drills into the panels and turn them. Give them a really good twist~" Leeron said, wiggling his thumb in a very strange manner. The trio decided to just hop in their mechs and get it over with.

"Okay." And so they inserted the drills into each gunmen and twisted them clockwise. Raijin and Melodia seemed to get up and energized, no problem, but Lagann appeared to be having trouble.

"Oh my. Problems again?" Leeron asked, confused at why it didn't work for one of them.

"Um, don't worry Simon. It might just take time to start my engines." Lagann tried to reassure, though he himself had no idea why it was so hard to get energized. Perhaps a malfunciton? A mental block in his rider, perhaps?

Meanwhile, outside of the camp, the gunmen were taunting the soldiers with various one liners.

"Alright, you stubborn human stains..." The giant cat-like gunman started off.

"We're gonna wipe you off the face of the planet!" said the amphibious looking one.

They then proceeded to do what appeared to be aerobic stretches as the humans watched on, unamused by their opponent's actions.

"Man, what a bunch'a morons." Kamina said bluntly. Hunter could only nod his head in agreement, while Kanade only sighed at the sight. No one should have to take these mooks so seriously, especially if they were doing stupidly silly stuff like this.

"Alright everyone, you know your positions, so let's move!" Everyone nodded, until they heard the sound of the same hammer beating on metal again.

"... Oh man, here come a few more of them." Dayakka grunted.

"Wait, more of them? How can you tell?" Kanade asked, wondering how they could tell when it was only one gunmen or multiple gunmen.

"You might wanna plug your ears for this." Yoko advised. As soon as she said this, three more gunmen crashed into the dirt next to the other two gunmen, creating a shock-wave even bigger than the previous ones.

"W-what the hell?!" Kamina shouted, shocked at how much power these gunmen had. And this was just them entering the battle! Was this really what they were going to be up against?

* * *

 Back inside, the The trio and their mini gunmen were struggling to keep balance alongside Leeron, when Simon realized something.

"These tremors..." Simon muttered to himself, flashbacks of when he lost his parents resurfacing, along with every earthquake in Jiha village. The connection couldn't be any more clearer to him. It made way too much sense for it not to be a coincidence.

The gunmen that had landed were somewhat rounder in shape than the other two. The first one was reddish in color, with yellowish orange arms and legs, yellow eyes and a fierce looking expression on its face. On its back were two giant swords about the size of small hills that looked like they could crush boulders with ease.

The second one was a metallic blue in color, but with a more elongated mouth and sharper looking eyes. It's arms and legs were rather bulky, meaning that it might be rather sluggish in movement, but might boast strength and defense, and it possessed a rather intimidating sword that looked like it could slice a mountain in two.

The last one had a rather graceful looking appearance with large eyes and a smaller mouth, along with yellowish orange arms and legs, though they were rather slimmer than the rest of the mechs. The back of the slimmer mech seemed to possess a spear like weapon that must have been meant for disabling enemy forces from a distance.

"They did it..." Simon muttered, louder. The three new gunmen's eyes opened with life, which wasn't exactly good for Littner's troops. Two gunmen was one thing, but five at once? That would be a challenge.

"They were the cause of the tremors..." Simon spoke louder. Yamato and Hibiki looked at each other, the same realization dawning on them as well. The gunmen extended their limbs outward, their legs lifting them up off the ground, roaring as they sprang to life.

"It's because of them, my mom and dad are...!!!" Simon started to bellow out. Suddenly, the panel in Lagann started to whir to life, the spiral within filling up with enormous amounts of energy. Both Simon and Lagann couldn't help but scream at how much power was being let out, and ran off out of the cave, with Yamato and Hibiki following in their respective gunmen too, after being too startled to move by Simon's cry.

* * *

 As the five enemy gunmen drew closer, some of the men down in the canyon tried to draw their attention, luring them into the valley, where more of the troops laid there in wait, ready to strike.

"Those are really big ones..." Dayakka said as the troops ran from the approaching gunmen, who continued to crush anything and everything around them.

"I've never seen models like those before." Yoko said, observing how these new enemies moved.

"I like the face on that one." Kamina said, pointing his finger at the reddish gunman that crashed its swords against the sides of the cliff and the rubble around its legs.

"Yeah, except I've got my eye on that blue one over there." Hunter said, watching how the Blue gunman swung its sword, cutting the ground in clean slices and hits.

"Hmmm... That one looks pretty good to me." Kanade thought, looking at the rather slim gunmen. It seemed as though the elder members of Team Gurren had the exact same thoughts forming in their minds.

"NOW!!!" Dayakka shouted as they let loose on the gunmen, spraying them with a massive barrage of bullets. The bullets seemed to prove ineffective, but they weren't exactly aiming for the gunmen, but instead at the cliff side. One by one, explosive charges were detonated, dropping vast amounts of boulders and rocks down onto the giant robots, who wailed out in what appeared to be agony.

"Whoa!" Hunter shouted, surprised at the sneak attack. He had thought of some plans to deal with the gunmen, but he never predicted a surprise attack like this, at least on this scale of power.

"We planted explosives alongside of the cliffs. Our plan worked beautifully." Yoko said with pride.

"I don't know, they look like they're ready to counter strike..." Kanade said, pointing at the gunmen, who had proceeded to cut and stab the falling boulders as they fell.

"Those things are tough..." Yoko muttered, seeing as their plan had started to come apart at the seams. These things were much tougher than she had originally thought, and it looked like conventional methods wouldn't exactly cut it for this round.

"Fine by me, those things are giving me the chills the more I look at 'em!" Kamina said, before he had an idea go off in his mind. He looked back at his siblings who seemed to come to the same realization.

"Hey Hunter. Kanade. You thinking what I'm thinking?" He asked the other two with a sly smile. The two of them smiled back in kind.

"For once, Kamina, you and I are thinking exactly alike." Hunter said slyly. He seemed to be shaking in anticipation at their thoughts being the same. When Hunter and Kamina got along, it spelled trouble for pretty much everyone involved.

"Can't believe we're really doing this. But this is a plan I can get behind!" Kanade muttered, a smile gracing her lips. It seemed that now was the time for their conjoined plan to come to fruition.

"Alright! We're gonna take those gunmen!" They shouted simultaneously. Yoko, stunned, turned to look at them in shock.

"What?!" She managed to squeak out. Had she heard them correctly? Take the gunmen?

"We said we're gonna pilot those things, okay?" Kamina said for all three of them.

"Hellooo?" Yoko said, trying to bring them back to the brink of reality. Sadly, it was to no avail.

"Those beast-men or whatever you call them pilot those things, right? Well if they can do it, so can we!"

"I've no idea where he gets his confidence." Yoko said to the 4th wall, shattering the barrier between her and the readers of this story.

"Oh screw you! For real men and women, actions speak louder than words!" Kamina said, adding in the women part because he knew Kanade was most definitely not like other women, for only she could truly stand up to the manliness of the Mighty Kamina. Maybe Yoko would prove herself to be like his sister, or maybe not.

"Oh yeah? Well..." Yoko never got to finish her remark, because Simon and the rest of the Digger Trio drove by in their respective gunmen.

"BRO/SIS!!!" They yelled, depending on who they were trying to reach out to.

"Got here just in time, blood brother!" Kamina yelled as he, Hunter and Kanade leaped into their respective brother/sister's gunmen, and charged at all five of the enemy, the canopies closed around them.

"Does anybody know what those guys are doing?" Dayakka asked no one in particular.

"They did it, bro! Every time these guys cause tremors up here it ends up as an earthquake down below in Jiha!" Yamato said to the Elder Trio, filling them in on all the details.

"So that's what those were!" Kamina always wondered what the cause of all of the earthquakes in Jiha were, and now he knew.

"It seems interesting that the tremors up here could travel so far down into the earth below us. Given how long it takes for a signal to reach from the top to bottom." Lagann said in his usual matter-of-fact tone. Melodia just sweat-dropped at his voice. Now wasn't the time for facts. Now was the time for action.

"It should've taken a much longer time to actually reach the village below us, but somehow they traveled really quickly." Raijin spoke up, confused about this as well. Melodia decided to glare at Raijin as well. Again, not the time for facts.

"...But that's not all we found out..." Hibiki said sadly. Kanade looked at her little sister, confused by what she meant. From Hibiki's tone, it was anything but good.

"Those bastards killed my mom and dad!" Simon yelled out angrily. Most of the team gasped, angered and shocked that the ones who caused their little brother so much harm were right in front of them, but Kamina decided to step in, with surprisingly sagely wisdom.

"Simon, glad to see you're up and ready to fight, but don't be too impatient. To win a brawl it takes guts and a cool level head." Kamina said coolly, trying to ease up Simon before he did something he might regret. Hunter, for his part was impressed. When Kamina used his head, he was actually pretty smart.

"Listen, we're going to help ourselves to some of those gunmen, more specifically, the pointy one, the big mouthed one, and the slender one."

"Huh?" The trio asked, bewildered by what their older siblings were planning.

"If we can get inside the mouths on their bellies, then maybe we can take control."

"That, uh, doesn't sound right." Melodia said, puzzled by what she was hearing. Sure, gunmen had controls but they would usually enter from the head of the machine, right? Or maybe from the back?

"Well how did you guys pilot your gunmen then?" Hunter asked curiously.

"Don't know. It kinda felt like it was a natural thing." Yamato said, unable to explain it any other way. As soon as he touched the controls back in Jiha, it felt as though he had known how to operate Raijin, almost as if he had known all his life how to do it.

"Well that's what we're gonna do." Kamina said as if it were a simple task.

"You just need the ol' fighting spirit."

"I don't think that's how it works..." Raijin muttered. Then again, he wasn't really familiar with these new robots that were chasing after them, so what did he know?

"Whatever, just take us in!"

"That doesn't sound very cool headed!" Simon replied back. With that, the team split up to take their respective elder siblings' gunmen at the same time.

All of a sudden, the toad gunmen appeared and struck out its left paw at Lagann, who dodged it by running up its arm, trying to get close to the red gunmen behind it. The blue gunmen near the cliff was having an even more difficult time trying to catch Raijin as he leaped all over the place, dodging every swing of its blade.

"Come on! Is that all you've got?!" Raijin taunted, only for it to reveal rocket launchers from every conceivable location that were aimed at his face. "Apparently not." Yamato didn't know whether to smack his gunmen for his banter or not for putting them in a much more grave situation.

"Never taunt the opponent by saying that. Chances are they probably do have something up their sleeve." Hunter replied. Sometimes, Yamato hated when his brother was right.

* * *

 The yellow gunmen and the other green gunmen were quickly trying to catch up to Melodia, who then suddenly stopped short to look at some flowers growing nearby.

"Hey, look sis! Flowers!" Hibiki cried out. This sudden stop in momentum caused the enemy gunmen to stumble into one another and roll up and over the mini gunmen, the pilot, and the passenger, causing it to roll onto its back.

"Hibiki! Focus!" Both Kanade and Melodia said at the same time, causing the younger girl to shrink back a bit. Luckily, that was enough to knock over the yellow gunman, making this the perfect opportunity to snatch it.

"Well whatever works, I guess. Hey Kamina! We beat you to the punch!" Kanade yelled out as she attempted to pry open the yellow gunmen's mouth, revealing a female like fox beast-man at the controls. It didn't take long for Kanade to beat the living hell out of her and knock her out of her newly acquired gunmen. Looking at the controls, Kanade thought they'd be simple enough. So she slipped right in and grabbed at the handles, gripping them tightly in her hands. Thinking of how her sister operated Melodia, Kanade took in a deep breath.

"Here goes nothing!" Kanade screamed as she gripped at the controls, causing the gunmen's systems roared to life once more, only this time, they were playing for a different team.

"Systems fully operational at 100 percent. Gunmen battle systems: online." And just like with Melodia, the gunmen began speaking as soon as Kanade had finished squeezing so tightly on the handles.

"Glad to meet you, new partner!" Kanade said to her new robot, patting the insides of the cockpit. The gunmen seemed to jump at first before acknowledging the new pilot inside.

"Oh! Um... Glad to meet you too, new pilot!" The gunmen said in a tone that seemed familiar to Kanade, though she couldn't figure out why at the moment. Even the voice seemed familiar too.

"Commander Gohala has been killed!" The green cat gunmen yelled before charging at Kanade and her gunmen, screaming about getting revenge. Kanade shifted the controls and her gunmen knocked the green cat gunmen back with her lance. Although the enemy was right in front of her, Kanade seemed to have a more urgent matter to attend to.

Finding a name for her new robot. A mandatory step when it came to operating these things. If the mini gunmen had names, why not her gunmen, too? After a few moments, she finally came up with something that even Kamina would approve of as genius thinking.

"I'm gonna call you Faito, which to us humans means fighting spirit! Now let's go and kick some beast-man ass!" Kanade shouted. 

"Y-yes ma'am! Ready to get busy and do a good job!" Shouted the newly named Faito, eager to please her new pilot.

* * *

 Meanwhile, the blue gunmen had finally ran out of missiles to shoot at Magnum, who was ready to knock some sense into the gunmen's teeth.

"Ready, Raijin?" Yamato asked his gunmen, who seemed all too eager to answer.

"More than anything!" Raijin shouted as the panel in his cockpit glowed green with the same familiar energy from before flowing through his systems.

"Spring Hop Bash!!!"

Changing his legs into springs, they rammed into the blue gunmen's forehead with Raijin's canopy, knocking it over and quickly taking it out of the fight.

"Nice move name, little brother!" Hunter was quick to praise his brother, who stood by while he worked his magic and grabbed himself a gunmen.

"Alright, now open wide and say 'AHHHH'!" Hunter shouted, using his superhuman strength, most likely drawn from his adrenaline rush, he forced open the gunmen's giant mouth, revealing a lizard like beast-man at the helm. Throwing the lizard out of the cockpit, Hunter grabbed the controls and poured all of his fighting spirit into the machine. It seemed to struggle at first with flashing red lights, but eventually the lights within its system flashed green. Yamato and Raijin, quickly hopped off the gunmen as it started to stand up straight.

"Systems fully operational at 100 percent: Gunman systems online." And just like that, the fifth of Team Gurren's mighty gunmen force was claimed.

"Hey there. Looks like you and I are gonna be partners from now on." Hunter said within his cockpit, a smile etching its way onto his face.

"Oh, hi! Heh heh. Looking forward to it, new boss." The gunmen said back, a smile threatening to form on its big mug, somehow, despite not having any motor functions in order to do so.

"I think I've got the perfect name for you." Hunter said, the smile morphing into a smirk. This was a name he had thought of while Yamato was distracting the gunmen.

"Shinryu. Kinda fitting, don't you think?"

"Yeah. I like it! I like it!" Shinryu beamed at his brand new name, his eyes shining brighter than before, gleaming with a sort of newfound sense of purpose or being. 

"Alright. Ready to go, Shinryu?" Hunter asked his brand new mecha. The robot seemed a little too ready and willing to fight, judging by the sound of its tone.

"With pleasure. I've been meaning to give my former employers a very well written review. With a whole lotta bite to it!" The newly named Shinryu, said with vigor and gusto, raising its blade to the heavens. At this, Hunter sighed. Of all the gunmen that he had to get, it was the one that seemed to be programmed with puns.

"And now commander Shuzin has been killed!" The cat gunmen said, even though he was actually just fine.

* * *

 While all of this was going on, Kamina, Simon, and Lagann were still dodging the toad gunmen's attacks, but were now about to be slammed by on of its arms in midair, causing all three of them to scream in fear. Suddenly, its arm shifted towards the right, narrowly missing the small red gunmen and his passengers, and doing what they were trying to do: knock down and immobilize the enemy gunmen in order to take it from the beast-men.

"Ah! Sorry sir!" The toad gunman quickly apologized to the falling red gunman he just smacked across the face.

"Good grief. Why am I always the one supplying that moron with back up?" Yoko asked herself from her position.

As Lagann was falling, Kamina opened the canopy and jumped out, landing on the larger red gunmen's face.

"That face gives me the chills every time I look at it." Kamina smiled as he held up his gun in the wrong position and proceeded to slam it down on to the gunmen's mouth, accidentally firing and barely missing his sweet spot.

"Ah?! W-what the-?" Kamina asked, shocked. This gave the toad gunman enough time to reach down and grab Kamina, if it weren't for the tiny red gunmen known as Lagann stood in its way, holding back his arm.

"Don't even think about touching my brother!" Simon shouted, determined to not let another family member die. He had lost enough family members for an entire lifetime.

"Drill Slicer!" Lagann shouted as he used his forehead drill to cut through the gunman's left arm, causing it to sever off from the main body and onto the ground below.

"Just take a sec, bro!" Simon grunted as he forced open the red gunmen's mouth, revealing a monkey like beast man inside. Kamina pointed the gun, again in the wrong direction, at the beast man who would've laughed, save for the menacing robot behind the human.

"Get out. I'm taking control here." And with that, Kamina proceeded to boot out the beast man, and taking control of the gunman himself.

"Yeah, it's all about the fighting spirit!" Kamina shouted triumphantly. Suddenly, an alarm went off within the red gunman, revealing that it would not yet accept Kamina's commands as it proceeded to shut down on him. Flashing red lights shined around Kamina, displaying his signature sunglasses being crossed out by a large X.

"Commander Guzack has also been killed!" The cat gunmen shouted as it clenched its fist in rage. 

"Rotten stinking humans! You'll pay for that!" The toad gunmen bellowed as it bounced on its two short legs.

They then proceeded to beat the ever living crap outta the three hijacked gunmen, swearing revenge for their 'dead' commanders, even though they were literally right there shouting they were still alive. Even though they responded to their new pilots commands quite easily, both Hunter and Kanade were still pretty rusty in the piloting department and didn't know the controls very well, which caused them to stumble around like a couple of drunkards heading home from a bar on a Friday night.

The Digger Trio tried to help but they were knocked right into each other and slammed into the ground, all six of them unconscious. Draconis was knocked into a cliff face literally face first, driving his mouth into it, seemingly out of the fight, while Faito was knocked on her back, struggling to get back up. As for Kamina, he and his gunman were knocked onto the ground face first, disturbing the grave of the skeleton.

"Damn... What's slowing you down, Kamina? Show some of that fighting spirit!" Kamina shouted as soon as the monitor revealed the skull that they'd seen last night. Suddenly, Kamina's whole body seemingly froze. Sweat dripped off his brow, his nerves and pulse screamed in what seemed to be agony. For several painful seconds, he looked at the skull as it stared back, a sudden realization chilling Kamina down to his very spine.

'That's right...' Kamina thought to himself. If he lost here, then it would mean that everything that he and his siblings had worked for, it would have all been for nothing. They would just be names that would vanish from the face of history, forgotten heroes of their time. 

'To lose here means to die.' Kamina then remembered the chief's words about his father and his smug look. He had promised himself that he would use that as a motivator to get to the surface faster, and he was not going to let those words affect him anymore. How could he die now, while his brothers and sisters were out there, fighting for their lives against these monstrosities? 

'And that's NOT AN OPTION!!!' With newfound grit, the leader of Team Gurren then ground his teeth together as he squeezed the controls as hard as he could. This time, however, it seemed to have worked as the gunmen seemed to no longer blare its warning alarm.

As Kamina slowly got up, he crushed the dirt under him with his gunman's hand as the screens in his gunmen turned green, meaning that the mech had finally accepted him as its new pilot, and now he was ready to go and kick some serious beast-man ass.

"Don't screw with me... You bastards..." Kamina muttered as his gunman started talking.

"Systems fully operational at 100 percent: gunman system online." His gunmen finally said, before they both screamed into the sky,his voice just as eager and powerful as his new master.

"JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!!!!!" Hunter and Kanade, having heard their brother scream to the heavens, woke from their temporary slumber, and along with their gunmen, managed to quickly recover and desperately tried to rush to the aid of their younger siblings, who were about to be stomped flat into the dirt and ground into paste.

"It's all over for you, runts!" The toad ganman said as he lifted his foot. Just as he was about to make human-gunmen pancakes, a scream echoed throughout the valley.

"WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM KICK!!!!" Two voices called out from out of nowhere.

And then all of a sudden, Kamina's gunmen slammed both of his legs in a massive drop kick straight into the toad gunman's mouth knocking him off balance and into the cat gunmen, destroying his legs in the process. Using his momentum, Kamina spun his gunmen around screaming out a new attack technique he had come up with.

"HANDS OFF MY BELOVED LITTLE SIBLINGS PUNCH!!!" And with that, Kamina's gunmen struck both enemy gunmen with a wickedly tough left straight, destroying the arm to the point of no repair. Both enemy gunmen were sent flying into the canyon at high speeds, getting knocked into the air as soon as they reached the canyon's end.

"Simon! Come on, pull it together!" Simon heard Kamina's cry as he opened his eyes, noticing that His voice was coming from within the gunman.

"I-is that you bro?" Simon asked, still unsure if he was dreaming or not. Hopefully he wasn't and that it was him inside the large red gunmen.

"Yeah. Sorry about the wait. Got a bit held up." Kamina apologized as he picked up Lagann and Simon in his undamaged right hand.

"At the very least, thanks for saving us." Lagann said, happy to not have been buried underground again.

"You okay, Yamato?" Hunter asked, worried that his brother might've suffered brain damage from the impact. Shinryu picking up Raijin and resting him up on his massive shoulder.

"I've been better." Yamato grunted, still a bit dazed from the recent beat down.

"Ow... That hurt..." Hibiki moaned as she and Melodia were lifted up by Kanade and Faito, the latter placing them on the ground softly.

"Alright, let's finish them off!" Kamina shouted with renewed vigor.

"Right!" Both Simon and Lagann said. Then, all of a sudden, they felt rather squished in Kamina's gunman's hand.

"Wait, what're you doing?!" Simon asked, confused.

"They're all yours, Simon, Lagann. And put some back into it!!" Kamina shouted, getting into a tossing position.

"Ready? PERFECT COMBUSTION OF MANLY SOULS CANNONBALL ATTACK!!!!" Kamina shouted as his gunmen hurled Lagann with all of its might. The rest of the group, both humans and gunmen alike, sweat-dropped at the technique name. Though to Hunter, it was actually pretty cool to watch.

"THIS IS COMPLETELY MESSED UP!!!" Simon and Lagann screamed as they hurtled towards the green gunmen at blinding speeds, blowing away any dust clouds in their way.

Flipping over, Lagann folded his arms and legs in and produced a massive drill from underneath his large head, which seemed to propel him forward even faster than before. The gunmen, still recovering from the last attack, noticed Lagann coming in hot and managed to both duck and jump respectively at the last second, causing Lagann to dig into the wall behind them.

"HAHA! You missed us!" The gunmen taunted bouncing around happily.

"Oh yeah? You think so, huh?" Kamina asked slyly. It was all according to the plan he had come up within the spur of the moment. His siblings and their gunmen seemed to understand what he was going for, and smirked at the enemy.

Back in the cliff, Lagann and Simon were twisting up, down and around, trying to turn back around and escape the cliff side. With the speed and velocity that they were travelling at, however, it was rather difficult, but not entirely impossible.

"Guess we gotta do it!!!" Simon shouted as he managed to direct Lagann out of the cliff and sent both of them hurtling towards the enemy gunmen, this time making direct contact with them, drilling through both of their mouths, and destroying them in one fell swoop. Simon and Lagann would've been sent hurtling across the horizon had it not been for Kamina's gunman grabbing them in midair with his undamaged hand. The beast men within were sent hurtling towards the ground, right next to their not dead commanders.

"They-they destroyed them all!" Guzack shouted as he and his beast man brethren ran for the hills, absolutely terrified of this particular group of humans.

Back in Lagann, Simon panted heavily, adrenaline pouring out of his systems.

"Come on, bro! Give us a break, already..." Simon said, exasperated. Boota, who had climbed into Simon's mech, decided to lick his owner to make him feel better.

"What did we tell ya, Yoko? We said we'd take these gunmen, and we did just that!" Kanade shouted out from Faito.

"I gotta admit, that was pretty cool. And I guess Kamina wasn't lying when he said you'd actually do it." Yoko said honestly. Leeron leaned into her with a smirk on his face.

"Ah~ So he's your type?" He asked Yoko, who jerked away, confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well I'm impressed." Leeron stated, gazing upon the gunmen that were once used to destroy humans.

"Hijacking a gunmen never even occurred to us, least of all hijacking three of them at once. These kids really are special~"

* * *

 Later that day, repairs were starting on the three newest acquisitions of Team Gurren.

"I made up my mind. I'm calling my gunmen "Gurren."" Kamina said proudly. The mech seemed to smile at the new name it was given.

"I am honored that you named me after your team, Kamina sir." It stated humbly, never before having a name.

"We're going to beat any challenges that come our way. Simon with Lagann, Yamato with Raijin, Hibiki with Melodia, Kanade with Faito, Hunter with Shinryu, and me with you, Gurren." Kamina said to his mech as he glanced up at the sky.

"Wait for me old man..."

Later that evening, Kamina himself prepared to dig a new grave for the skeleton, of which he accidentally crushed. It was the least he could do after bad mouthing him the day before.

"Hey, sorry about disturbing ya like that. Got a little carried a way there for a moment. Hope you don't hold it against me." Kamina apologized. The skeleton said nothing, as expected.

Just then, Kamina noticed something. It was a familiar skull charm that once belonged to...

"No way..."

Kamina jumped into the pit, starting to dig near the skeletons remains and brushing off the dirt. What he found was a very familiar cape, along with the same jewelry that HE wore when they came to the surface.

"There's just no way. It isn't possible!" The rest of Team Gurren came to the realization much sooner and were shocked to find out who it was. Yoko looked at them, confused.

"Dad..." Kamina muttered. Yoko grew shocked. The man whose skull was found was Kamina's...

"It can't be..." Hunter whispered to Yamato, who had tears starting to form in his eyes despite his brave face.

"We were so close to him... All this time?" Kanade murmured, holding Hibiki in a close embrace as they looked at the disturbed skeleton.

"Old man... You bought it out here?" Kamina muttered, tears dripping from his proud eyes.

"You died... You didn't wait for us..." And with that Kamina screamed to the heavens in grief.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDDD!!!!!!!!!!!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! As always, make sure you comment down below for tips and suggestions to better improve the story. Your feedback is always appreciated.


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